Swallowtail website

Has anyone seen this site before http://www.swallowtail.info/ ? Very good enthusiasts site (no glued on bits of plastic  :wink: ) for early mk1s. Check out the scanned literature from the 70's, original colour card from 1975!

Cheers

Very interesting - I had seen Golfs in breakers :cry:  that had these different features, but I didn't realise that they were '74 models…

They really were very Beetle-like in the early days!

Very interesting. Didn't know that.  

Just goes to show what powerful tool the internet is. Wonder what else lurks out there that we don't know about/of ?

Part of our job to assimulate all these sites!

Very interesting though. I didn't realise there was a difference between the small light and the swallowtails, I thought they were one and the same.

Cheers,

Drew.

Very interesting !  No mention of the 'postie' lights in the info section though. Maybe they never made it onto US cars

I have one of those grilles without the headlamp surrounds in the garage (!)  I'd always thought that someone must have cut off the surrounds for some reason and made a very neat job of it - never occured to me that it was a specific, early part. I did notice that the headlights on the car it came from appeared to be different though, but I thought someone had made lights from another car fit (and therefore altered the grille)

Hmmm, very interesting !!!

Mark

Been a member for over a years now since I have 2 swallowtails  

The grilles without headlamp surrounds were only fitted to very early '75s.

Postie lights only came about because reversing lights were an option from '75 to '76 on some models. As US regulations require reversing lights (unlike UK), all US vehicles have reversing lights. In fact, pre-production cars were fitted with a competely different rear lamp unit to the normal small light, one of these vehicles is shown in the '74 brochure.

There is no such thing as a '74 Model Year Golf, they started production with '75 Model Year in May 74 and VINs reflect this.

Altogether there are loads of differences even between a swallowtail and a late small lamp from different bonnets to different rain trays, each day I find more!

Cheers
Rajan

'tis a really interesting site! I sent Dan (the boke that runs it) some scans of the first UK Golf road test - from an Autocar (1975? can't remember) - that he should hopefully get round to putting up soon!

Do you reckon they are looking at this site, thinking and possibly saying the same as us!

So is a 1980 GTI a big bumper SwallowTail????? Big bumpers

So the US could be a source of spares! I thought they only made Cheverolet Camaro's over there! Man.

Gareth

A swallowtail has a unique rear panel with kinks in it in line with the bottom of the tail lights - that is the definition. They were made during '75 and '76 Model Year on all Golfs and are therefore small metal bumper only.