My daughter bought a Beetle last year which has a 1965 Australian body on a 1971 chassis. I've now bought a 1965 Australian chassis and want to put the body on that. The problem I have is that I have no documentation with the chassis and Australian built Beetles of that period aren't registered with VAG or Samba and all Australian records have been lost. I can provide a letter from an Australian VW owners club stating that the chassis, number starting 195, was built in 1965 but does anyone know if that will be enough evidence to register the car with an age related plate? I don't want to go to the expense of doing all the work only to find that we can't register the car with the DVLA as a 1965.
Can anyone help please?

H'mmm interesting one. Rich Oakley may be able to give some more info but I would say talk to the DVLA (visiting a local office would be better than calling) and ask their advice.

Thanks for your reply. I intend to visit the DVLA but am hoping to go armed with a little pre-knowledge. What worries me is that the chassis has never been registered in the UK and seeing that I don't have any customs documents I'm hoping that proof of age and ownership will be enough to give it an age related plate. I'd rather keep the current chassis than end up with a Q plate.

Does anyone have any views as to whether I'd be doing the right thing by fitting the new chassis? The present car doesn't have any history, just the usual V5 registration document showing date of first registration (1971) and the number of previous owners. I'm assuming that if I'm able to register the car on the new chassis it would show my daughter as the first registered keeper. I like the idea of marrying the body to an age related chassis when we take the car off the road next year for restoration, but don't want to reduce the it's value.

Photo of my daughter collecting the car:  collecting 2_opt.jpg You have insufficient rights to see the content.