swing axle, what was last year produced

thanx in advance.

1967 and it was unique for lots of other things too. namely first year of 12v
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=187814


1968 and up had ball-joint and IRS

1968 was the last year of the swing axle trans, it was a long axle set-up. I have this year in my '55 and had to do a short axle conversion to fit the wider wheels inside the body.

Actually 68 was still swing axle, It depends on if its early 68 or later 68. I have a 68 with a swing

Actually, if you want to get technical, all the 1968 bugs were swing axle except for the Auto Stickshift models were the first IRS rear suspension. In 1969, all the bugs were IRS, at least all the American models were. Also, 1966 was the first year for the balljoint front suspension.

Weren't all the Mexican VW's swing axle?

Like previously said IRS came into being in late '68 (if I'm not mistaken the official intro year was '69) and it was a uniquely German production. All Mexican and Brazilian up until the end of production are all swingaxle.

Sounds crazy but I might convert my IRS to swingaxle. I have a 68' and a 65'. I'm guessing the 65' would fit better? I might put the 68' in my Manx.
Jeff

For what it worth all of the beetles manaufactured in South Africa had king pin front ends with swing axles.

Jeff, I have had a Speedster with a swing axle as well as one with IRS. The IRS was vastly superior handling wise. I would personally not build a performance Speedster with swing axles.

Just puttering about swing axles are fine...really hard driving, different story...VW went to the IRS for good reasons besides Ralph Nader being a pain it the butt.....

I second that. The part about the vastly superior handling.

Never met Ralph Nader, but he does seem to be a pain in the butt...

I finally read Nadar's book last summer. He makes only passing references to VW and Mercedes swing axles and clearly targets the Corvair. I'm sure he did that for political punch, as GM was a much bigger target in the 60s than either of the other companies. I was also surprised that the swing axle was only about 20% of the book. The rest was all about other bad stuff the Big Thre were doing in disregard for public safety. That was his real target.