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#236701
cucumber1949
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@cucumber1949

I am the owner of a London Roadster.  Have done some research on the car and the company.

History of the company:

London Coach Works Limited, Dearborn, Michigan. The registered office address was 25190 Michigan Ave, Inkster, Michigan, 48141.  It looks like it was first incorporated on 9-26-1978 (1,000 shares). I have found a second incorporation notice (might have been an IPO) on 3-15-1979 for 50,000 shares. They took a small business loan of $270,000 (Comerica Bank) on 8/7/1980. Their last annual report was in 1988.  The resident agent’s name was Ian Stevenson. The corporation was automatically dissolved on 5-15-1991.  There was also a company at the same address during this period called the Victoria Street Garage, apparently in existence from 12-27-1984 through 5-15-1989.  All of the above was found on the Michigan.gov website and is publicly available.  I have a one page factory brochure – it never mentions the word ‘Volkswagen’.

I bought the car for my wife about a year ago. It was factory built in 1983 and has a London Coach Works VIN tag.  My understanding is that about 15,000 of these cars were factory built (I’ve been unable to verify that – seems high), and they were also available as a kit car. As most probably know, they are built on VW beetle chassis and engines.  I’m an old hotrodder who has built many cars and most of them use small block Chevy engines, so I’ve been learning Volkswagen recently.  The engine in this car is a 1600 cc VW, 2v carb, generator, dual port manifold, has air adjustable rear shocks, and has a VW fully automatic type 3 transmission (my wife never learned the manual trans).  Have found it so far to be fairly simple to work on and there is plenty of VW knowledge in my local area.  I can tell you it is a delight to drive and dependable so far.