How to import a V.W. Mexican Beetle - Is it possible????

  
     
 

The cost of a New Mexican Beetle in Mexico is roughly 70,000 Mexican pesos, this means with the conversion to the Aussie dollar, of roughly 5 pesos per dollar a New Mexican Beetle would cost about $14,000 if you were over there with cash in hand. Problem is you have to add certain import duties as well as the cost of freight and conversion to right hand drive.
  I further looked into the cost of a bug in Germany and it's about the same. Getting it from the United Kingdom (they're 37p per Aussie dollar), their cost is 8000-9000 pounds this is the same as about $20,000 Aussie dollars. The operation is not looking too good for the Beetle enthusiast in Australia, because our dollar is basically like monopoly money. The other thing is the legality of doing it, there are certain import restrictions, and the only way you could get a new Beetle in is with a compliance approval, which costs a lot of dough! A low volume import license allows you to bring in a max of 25 cars per calendar year. Prior to this if you wanted to bring in a car for yourself you would have to have been living in that country for 3 months, which has just been extended to 1 year. Finding a person who is coming to Australia and getting them to buy the Beetle and bringing it out then handing it over is about the only option.
  The possibility of bringing back the air- cooled Beetle before they cease production in the year 2004 is what has driven me to do the research for this article. In the United Kingdom there has been established the "Mexican Beetle register" which I received some very valuable information from regarding purchasing a Mexican Beetle. The information details where to go, what to do in regards to shipping, who to contact etc., it was the most useful information I had received. Prior to this I had contacted the factory by Email, fax and phone. The response was all basically the same that is Volkswagen Mexico supply the air-cooled Beetle only for the Latin American market. The car is not for export, well that's interesting considering the cars are available in the United Kingdom through Beetles U.K as well as Beetles Revival in Germany. The head office in Mexico has recently released a memo to all their distributors that they're only to sell to citizens of Latin America!!  
 

The problem with importing a car you see is that it must meet the Australian Design Requirements (ADR's) of the year that it was made. This is not a problem for cars older than 15 years, which can be brought straight in, yet the current air cooled bug must meet year 2000 specifications. This involves emissions as well as noise testing. I have the complete CD ROM specifications from Canberra and they are extensive. The cost to meet these requirements could be in the vicinity of $10,000.00 according to the engineer I contacted. Anyone interested ??. If you bring the car in and sign a statutory declaration it will not be driven on the road then you can get one in and put it in your V.W. collection museum and look at it! This would bypass the import restrictions. So what else can be done? Well, if you brought in a car and swapped it to an already registered floor-pan then you could register it when you received it but only as the model of the floor-pan (i.e. a 1970) never the 2000 bug it is. This is what Beetles U.K. can do and is what they do to get them into the U.S. So what is the difference between doing this and simply swapping the compliance plate? Very little!! Which one would you prefer? The fact of the matter is the new air cooled Beetle would meet most requirements other than noise and frontal collision testing, the emissions have been done and the current fuel injected model with catalytic converter was found to be a tad cleaner than a 97 V.W. Polo!! From talking to Beetles UK the guys there inform me that the quality of the Mexican Bug is fantastic. The workers at the Puebla plant consider themselves to be the "Cream" of Volkswagen to be still working on the air-cooled Beetle, they employ all the latest technology. With respect to paint it's water based and state of the art and the finish is excellent. The panel fit is very good and in their opinion is superior to the German Beetle!

The disappointing thing is that according to Voice of America, V.W. will move its production of the air- cooled Beetle back to Brazil next year and I think that would affect the quality. Rumour has it that the production will cease altogether in the year 2004. Perhaps we could establish a register at the motor show just like they did at the motor show a few years back to generate interest in the new/old Beetle!. If Volkswagen of Mexico are not interested in maintaining the air-cooled Beetle then who is? There was a Mexican Beetle on display at the Japanese motor show. If they bought the production process the Bug may live a little longer than its estimated doomsday. Some would question if this is not a bad thing, that the Bug has lived out its useful life, yet is it a simple case of fantastic design and longevity being a threat to capitalistic consumerism?

  
 

I have had a friend of mine in the car importing business look into it all very closely and to land one in Australia it would have to be sold for about $25,000AUD. The likelihood of selling any would be low. It was an interesting project which confirmed my worst fears that the government don't want you to buy air cooled VW's when you can buy a new "drive away no more to pay buzz box''- with free air! My advice, forget it and restore one that is already here!

David Gluyas - April 2001