TOYOTA WEBER Carburetor User Manual

What is a Genuine WEBER Carburetor?

This is a much debated topic, but mostly among those selling what can only be described as a
"Similar" carburetor.

The “Similar” carburetors are easily distinguished from the European Weber by several
characteristics:

• The Genuine European Weber’s have the trademark "W" stamped into the carburetor
and are clearly marked with its origin "Made in Spain".

• The only markings on some of the "Similar" carbs are a sticker. There are no markings
indicating where it is made or who made it.

• The casting on the "Similar" carburetors is very smooth. While you might assume that
is better because if it's appearance they are not made using the same metal resulting
in the difference in appearance.

• Another way to spot the "Similar" carburetors is that a lot of them have a black choke
element - all of the Redline Webers coming from Europe have a White choke
element.

The hope here is to clear some confusion by different merchants claiming they are selling Genuine
Weber carburetors. How does a consumer discern what Genuine really means?

The WEBER story

The founder of WEBER carburetors was Eduardo Weber. The WEBER carburetor company as we
know it started in 1935 in Bologna, Italy. They produced carburetors there till 1992 when production
was moved to Spain.

When we think of WEBER carburetors this is the company that we refer to. The “WEBER” name is
currently owned by Magneti Marelli of Italy. This international company owns many other brands –
the most interesting of which is SOLEX. The Solex carburetors were a major competitor to WEBER
for almost 60 years – and today they are owned by the same parent company. Magneti Marelli
licenses the use of the “WEBER” name to many entities worldwide. Licensing in some cases means
they can use the WEBER name and the WEBER mark to brand a product that otherwise would not
be recognized as a WEBER.

Car manufacturers regularly brand products. GM produces a car in Europe (Opel) in a plant that GM
owns – brings it to the states and sells it as a Cadillac Cetera. Does that mean it is a Cadillac? Ford
jointly builds a car with Mazda (626 and Probe) with primarily Mazda drive train – does that make it
a Ford? This policy is called “combination branding” when one parent company places the same
brand on products that compete in the market place – i.e. Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Saturn, Cadillac, etc.
all sold as GM. In the case of GM they needed a nice midsized vehicle and the Opel was easy to
brand a Cadillac. GM did sell cars in the US under the OPEL name plate for years, but stopped
when sales did not meet expectations.
Was GM hiding something from the public if they did not disclose that the Cadillac they were buying
was really an Opel? This is the problem with branding (licensing) a product – the consumer may be
buying something they believe is one brand – when in fact it is made, designed, and or engineered
by a different company. Both companies can be owned by the same parent company – but are they
the same?

That is the situation with WEBER carburetors today. Certain companies have no affiliation (other
than maintaining licensing and manufacturing agreements with Magneti Marelli) with the Italian
designed and Spanish built Weber carburetors. But this licensing agreement means that a specific
company can legally use the Weber name. Continuing that line of reasoning they claim they are
“genuine” and they may in fact be – legally. But are they “Genuine”?

In our opinion “Genuine” infers two things – that it is real and original. There is only one original
Weber and that is the European produced, Italian designed, carburetor built in Spain. These
carburetors were originally designed and engineered by the Weber Carburetor company in Italy.
Consumers should be aware that what this company is doing is importing a Solex designed
carburetor from South America – branding it a Weber – and calling it a “Genuine” Weber. They
reason that if Magneti Marelli owns the Solex factory then it can legally be called a “genuine”
Weber. We will leave it up to the reader to decide for themselves whether they believe this is what a
person would believe to mean “Genuine” (legally it says so).

Now this company has taken it a step further (as of the Summer of 2011) and is now supplying the
32/36 DGV series and the 38 DGS series carburetors and branding them as Weber's just as they
did with the Solex Carb's from South America.

Below is a detail list of the models in question.