The Amazing M-Code Plate

10/29/09

Imagine a man sitting comfortably in the driver's seat of a 1978 VW bus.  Now take your imaginary man and flip him upside down (I hope you didn't imagine him driving ... that could be dangerous.)  Cram his head and shoulders on the floorboard and wedge his knees against the steering wheel.  Congratulations!  You have just imagined a very close approximation of the position required to fleetingly glimpse the fabled M-Code Plate on a 1977-1979 bus.

Had we placed our little man in a 68-76 bus, he would have had an easy task.  The plate was simply riveted to the metal wall behind the driver's seat.  Not so on the later buses ...  it is riveted to the upper backside of the fresh air vent.  That would be a large metal structure crammed, stuffed, stuck, and wedged above and behind the dash.

Even if you were to give your little man a flashlight, he could only lie there on the floor, struggling in vain to see enough of the plate to make any sense of it.

Perhaps you imagined your imaginary man as the Indiana Jones, type, though.  If so, you could give him a bit of charcoal and some paper to make a rubbing of the plate.  However, if your imagination is normal (aka hum-drum-boring,) he's just an uncomfortable man, squirming on the floor.  So you should just give him a camera to poke into the space.  Your miserable puppet won't be able to see where he's aiming the camera, exactly, but with enough tries he'll certainly get a picture that shows the whole plate and isn't washed out by overexposure from the flash in a confined space.  His picture will look much like this:

Now what to do with this picture?


This handy plate is something like the DNA of a Volkswagen.  Not in the being a repeating structure, integral to all parts sense, but rather in how it is a code that, when deciphered, tells the makeup of each particular bus.  This code is the proof of what you felt all along; your bus is special and different from the rest.

Even if your particular options were very common, those specific features were only produced in a small subset of all buses produced that year.  Then if you take into account how few of those were imported via your particular port, it's an even smaller number.  If that small group of buses isn't small enough for you, well, at least your serial number is unique!

Here are the specifics from my M-Code Plate and a little info on how to read it:

If you're ready to decipher yours, you can simply go to http://www.alltheprettybuses.com/_d_decoder.asp to have it done automatically!

82	127	718
227	246
982646	D52	P27	005	073
19	5	7457	UJ	2319	63

CC	CCC	CCCC
MMM	MMM	MMM	MMM	MMM
PPPPII	MMM	MMM	MMM	MMM
DD	D	UUUU	EE	XXXX	TT

C – Chassis Number        M – M codes (optional extras)   P/I – Paint & Interior Colors

D – Production Date       U – Unknown Code        E – Export Destination   X – Model Type

T – Transmission & Engine Type

82 : 1978 model type 2
127 718 : serial number
227 : detachable headrest in cab
246 : Windshield fee from import-duty for USA
9826 : paint code, L13A (Dakota Beige)
46 : interior, cloth camping brown beige
D52 : USA specifications group - speedo in miles, sealed beam headlamps, rear window defroster, back-up lamps, side marker reflectors
P27: SO Conversion - Campmobile deluxe with pop-up roof, folding spare tire, combined gas/electric refrigerator (76-79)
005 : Heater outlet in seat box of rear bench seat
073 : Pop-up roof campmobile
19 5 : week of production and number of weekday of production, my bus was "born" on May 12, 1978
7457 : somehow related to production planning
UJ : Export destination, Jacksonville was the port of entry
231 : VW Kombi, LHD, sliding door right

9 : Campmobile

6 : Type 4 engine, fuel injection

3 : Automatic transmission