Since I’ve owned Felix, I’ve had a quality repro rack on his roof supplied by our friends at Wolfsburg West.

A few weeks ago, a friend who is moving contacted me about an old rack that was sitting in his house. This rack had been on his Dad’s ’62 and ’68 Beetles in the ’60s and ’70s, but he happened to keep the rack even though the cars have moved on.

Intrigued, I went over to his house to investigate. The only marking I noticed in the dim light of the parking lot was “HWE”, and some searching on TheSamba, eBay, and Bing found me info about HWE Type 2 racks, but nothing for our venerable Beetles. I started a thread on TheSamba to find out about pricing, as I didn’t want to rip off my friend (or be ripped off if it’s a repro!).

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I just got my Volkswagen Birth Certificate in the mail for Felix the Beetle. I always knew based on his VIN number that he was “born” in January of ’67, so there was a 1 in 31 chance of Felix sharing my birthday.

The birth certificate arrived today, and page one confirmed something I knew already: the engine case isn’t original to the car. However, page two confirms it! Felix and I share a birthday – he’s exactly 12 years older than I am – as Eric mentioned in a text message response to me, it was meant to be. :)

I’ll take sharing a birthdate over original engine case.