Aircooled VW South Africa

Merlin wrote:
You can introduce a RHD, provided that it complies with the standard applicable vehicle regulations. It's a pain, but it is possible. I will need to do this for one of my vehicles this year.

I have no idea what is involved with registering a converted RHD vehicle.

As of a few months ago, new legislation states that all vehicles submitted for a Police Clearance require Data Dots/Micro Dots.

Clearer?

If the steering wheel has been swapped to the other side you will have no issues introducing it on the system, the inspection / introduction forms only contains info such as colour, weight, number of seats etc. Nothing else is inspected.

What you will need to check first is the your VIN number on Enatis, if it does bring it up, it should be listed as left hand drive and it can remain on LHD as it is already on the system. If it brings up no history / details to the VIN, do the conversion and introduce it onto the system as normal.

You can do the whole lot in one morning, its very easy to get a vehicle on the system.

Yesterday I handed in my special licence application for my bus to have the reduced licence fees as well as the exempt roadworthy which gets sent away to the department of transport for assessing, after which I got a phone call 4 hours later to say everything was approved and I can collect my disk. Hows that for service.

Hand in the correct documents and you can have the vehicle registered on your name the next day.

sean wrote:Yesterday I handed in my special licence application for my bus to have the reduced licence fees as well as the exempt roadworthy ............ and I can collect my disk. Hows that for service.

Huh?!? What special licence is that & exempt from roadworthy, how does that work? Is that like a vintage or classic licence or something like that? please shed some light on this for me as I would like to know more about this. Are there limitations to use of the vehicle and what licence plate do you get?

riaanj wrote:Huh?!? What special licence is that & exempt from roadworthy, how does that work? Is that like a vintage or classic licence or something like that? please shed some light on this for me as I would like to know more about this. Are there limitations to use of the vehicle and what licence plate do you get?

Yes, please tell all. I know there used to be some kind of licence exemption for vehicles over 40 years old, but I didn't know it still existed. Most of my fleet is over 40 and I'm paying several grand a year in licence fees.

Its applicable to vehicles over 45 years old. Its quite simple, you fill in one of those traffic department forms specifically for "special licence application", I thinks its a ELF1 form and it must be attached with a letter from a car club specifically stating that the vehicle is over than 45 years, you as the owner are a member of a car club, the vehicle is not used on a daily basis and partakes in motor shows etc etc. The letter must have a letter head of the club and be stamped with the owners details too.

It does not have to be an official registered car club, so KKK could prepare one of these letters.

So you hand in the ELF1 form with your signed letter which gets sent away for assessment. If it's approved you have a special licence which means its now R79 per year for licence fees irrespective of what car it is. It seems the exemption of the roadworthy is not well known (even by the officials), but when this special licence is processed it shows on Enatis that no roadworthy is required and you get your disk.

The basic understanding here is that because your vehicle is old, it isn't used often, there for you pay less. Your disk will now display an "S" on the disk. They will never know how many kilometres you do every year, therefore I see no other restrictions to this licence. There are no restrictions to passengers etc etc, everything else remains the same.

I have it on a few of my cars now and it really is a saving for each vehicle to be from R500 p/a to R79 p/a.

i'm sure theres a restriction on mileage, IIRC something like 5000km per year max. but as u say sean, who's really gonna keep track of how far u drive?

62vwbeetle wrote:As I mentioned previously, it could not be done had left hand drive karmann cabrio . No papers started rebuild before law change , would not reintroduce to system. Lesson learned don't buy left hand drive without it being on entails . Will cost u money and u won't be able to use it.

I thought to bring this up again, because, while interesting and encouraging, the debate is drifting away from the LHD issue, probably my fault.

Does it depend on who you speak to? The Wildbuggers at one stage had lots of issues with engine clearances and they got as many different procedures as folk they spoke to... a bit like opinions being like assholes, everybody's got one and it usually stinks... Watercool encountered, I think, the same problem with banking, it depends who you speak to and how well that person knows their job. One of the Wildbuggers eventually produced a procedure downloaded from the internet (some .gov.za site) and showed it to Stikland, and they were so impressed they asked for a copy. (it mentioned that they are not allowed to sumarily impound your vehicle, by the way.)

There are old topics on this forum that deal with this issue too. I suppose I like this debate because I still naively believe that nothing is impossibly.

Surely, if you can get a number plate for a centre line steering home built pipe car with a turbo charged Ford engine in it...

Ron&Gill wrote:I suppose I like this debate because I still naively believe that nothing is impossibly.

I'm with you there Ron. This is Africa, where all rules are just guidelines ...

I've seen a LHD Skyline GTR on the road. If you can get one of those registered then a LHD classic shouldn't be too difficult.

Thanks for all the advise. @Sean. Can you please clarify what you mean by correct documentation and where you did it (CPT or elsewhere). Requirements and the intelligence of the officials seem to vary from place to place .

Maybe I didn't come across the right official and pay the correct " I didn't notice the steering wheel on wrong side " levy, but believe me after ploughing a small nations budget into a resto of a classic , the definitive no I got in JHB, Edenvale and believe me not without much debate, police clearances , letters from car clubs etc etc etc etc , oh did I mention the many hrs of being shoved from pillar to post and of course the running round to borrow trailers, trade plates etc etc

If no exist and no papers , then the answer was two letters sound like go........

Don't wanna go off topic again, just - thanks Sean that's some great info there..

alvetro wrote:Thanks for all the advise. @Sean. Can you please clarify what you mean by correct documentation and where you did it (CPT or elsewhere). Requirements and the intelligence of the officials seem to vary from place to place .

By that I mean get documentation in order before going to the actual places, for example don't pitch up at police clearance without an RPI form from the traffic department first, you will get sent away. There is a lot more to this though, just Google it. The details are freely available and before making any more ideas and assumptions, simply go to a traffic department and check the details on your VIN number.

I am based in Cape Town.

UPDATE !!!

took the plunge and had it delivered today. Still missing the windscreen, hope to get it from the seller next week. Not sure who did the bodywork but they should be shot. Filler will never be a substitute for metal.

Cool bus, do the legal stuff b4 u spend a cent