Zertifikat

A little over a week ago I applied for Gretchen�s �birth certificate� through the Volkswagen Auto Museum. I was delighted when I arrived back from work yesterday to find a large envelope from VW in my pigeon hole. Wasting no time I tore the envelope open (drum roll)�..

Probably the biggest surprise for me was that she was built in Belgium! This got me very curious because I had not come across this before and so I decided to do a quick search online, but I did not find any relevant information. So, if anyone reading this blog knows anything about Belgium built Beetles, please leave a comment and share your insight.  

Edit 05/12/12: I have found out a bit more about Belgium built beetles!

The Belgian company was called D'ieteren and the assembly plant was located in Vorst/Forest, which is an area in the south-western part of Brussels. D�ieteren surrendered the plant at the end of 1970 after which full ownership transferred to Volkswagen and eventually became known as �Volkswagen Vosrt�. Between 1954 and 1975 the plant built 1,143,464 VW Beetles.

 
Here is an extract from an article on coachbuild.com:

�After WW II, Pierre D�ieteren managed to obtain the sales rights for VW and so they became the official Belgian distributor of that German manufacturer from 1948�. �D'ieteren bought a piece of land in 'Vorst' for the assembly of the Studebakers and soon this was followed by the assembly of Volkswagens�.

Today the factory is an Audi manufacturing plant and is known as �Audi Brussels�. More information can be found on the Audi Brussels wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audi_Brussels