Model years on Gumtree Split buses

[Loef]

I've been looking at these Split bus ad's from Gumtree that fig posts and wonder about model years.
There are often wrong years on them, Fleetlines advertised as 60ies buses and 60ies buses advertised as 50ies buses and so on, does'nt it say in the paperwork what year it's from?
I can understand if it's a wreck someone found and don't have the proper paperwork, but even on turn-key buses it's often wrong, why is that?

(...and no, not looking to export your precious split's, just interesting to see how the market is on the other side of the globe )

[fig]

Car registration documents in South Africa are not what you are used to seeing in Europe. When I saw the registration papers for my friend's 1949 Beetle in Germany, I was surprised to see that they showed the name and address of every owner who had ever been registered against that car. The papers even specified the approved tyre size for the car!

In SA only the current registered owner is listed, and there are no records at all of historical ownership. There is a field for the year, but it is worded as follows: "Date of first liability for registration (NB, not year model)." For the past 15 years or so, all vehicle registration records everywhere in the country, sit on a single national database. Prior to that, each province maintained its own vehicle registration database. Regarding the date of first liability for registration mentioned above, if a car was imported to SA when it was a few years old, the papers would show the year it arrived in SA as the "date of first liability for registration". This may also have applied to cars that moved between provinces.

A further complication came when they transferred all the provincial records to the computerised national database. The date of first liability for registration would have been a specific day, month and year. When the record was moved to the national database, only the year was carried over, and the day and month defaulted to 01/01.

So that explains why you can't rely on the registration papers to tell you what year a car was built. Then you have to factor in errors, which are very common on SA registration documents. Mostly these are never flagged for correction, unless the errors relate to the chassis or engine numbers. I have a 1971 double cab that the papers recognise as a Volkswagen and a pick-up, but when it lists model, it calls it a Golf!

Couple this with general ignorance, such as the belief among many in SA that a split bus is a "Fleetline" (I had someone tell me just last weekend that my baywindow buses are Fleetlines), and you can see why there is such confusion. Also, if you approach VWSA for info on any car they assembled or sold, they will not be able to tell you anything at all about your car, especially if it's from the air-cooled era.

[retrovan]

The one point that Fig missed, is that some guys want to make their bus sound better then it is, so they add a few years or models

Thats why a Fleetline always becomes a "German Split Bus"................

Herman

[Loef]

Wow, thats a very detaild answer, that explains the confused ad's, thanks fig!