Where is your car made

Last month we revealed, amongst much consternation from our readers, that manufacturers and importers are not legally bound to state where a car is made.

So firstly, let’s look at the findings from the fun quiz then we’ll tell you how you can discover where your car was made – if you know the secret codes!

Hey! Just look at your VIN (vehicle identifiation number, it’s on your rego documents and a elsewhere) and you can tell – if you can decipher the secret code.

You see, the first two letters of the VIN number do denote the manufacturing location.

But if the vin starts with ‘SA’ would you know that it is made in the UK?

Or 3A means it’s made in Mexico?

Probably not, until now, that is.

So, to help you out, we have listed below the first two digits for vin numbers and their origin code for some of the major manufacturing countries.

VA through VE – Austria	6A through 6W – Australia	YA through YE – Belgium
9A through 9E – Brazil	2A through 2O – Canada	LA through LO – China
YF through YK – Finland	VF through VR – France	SN through ST – Germany
WA through WO – Germany	TR through TV – Hungary	ZA through ZR – Italy
JA through JO – Japan	PL through PR – Malaysia	3A through 3W – Mexico
XL through XR – Netherlands	SU through SZ – Poland	U5 through U7 – Slovak Republic
AA through AH – South Africa	KL through KR – South Korea	VS through VW – Spain
YS through YW – Sweden	ML through MR – Thailand	NL through NR – Turkey
SA through SM – United Kingdom	1A through 1O – United States	4A through 4O – United States
5A through 5O – United States

OK, that’s a start, but we don’t think it’s enough. we feel that the actual name of the country of origin should also be clearly written on the vin plate, and it can’t be that difficult as the code is the key.

If you would like to make a comment on car manufacrturer origins on our blog page then please do!

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