Volkswagen Releases A New Bug
The Beetle’s back, and Volkswagen hopes this “Bug” takes off.
Two decades since the last newly built Beetle was sold nationally, Volkswagen today rolled out a restyled line of the classic car popularized by legions of college-age drivers in the 1960s and an improbable, wheelie-popping film hero named Herbie.
The car was displayed during the annual North American International Auto Show.
It’s no Herbie, known in film as “The Love Bug.” The 1999 model shares the ladybug-like shape and a few quirky, Beetle-esque touches, but the resemblance is only sheet-metal deep.
Designed in California and built in Mexico, Herbie’s heir offers antilock brakes and dual front and side air bags not part of the original Beetle. Its neoclassic shape is mated to the platform and engine of the next-generation Volkswagen Golf.
The new Beetle is larger than its predecessor - and more costly with a base U.S. sticker price of $15,200. And long gone are the original Bug’s unconventional air-cooled, rear-mounted engine, succeeded by one of three modern water-cooled, four-cylinder engines in the car’s front to drive the front wheels.
“Some may have predicted a retro car, but as you can see, the New Beetle is a completely new design, almost futuristic,” VW of America President Clive Warrilow said.
But Volkswagen believes Baby Boomers and college students will be smitten nonetheless when the car hits the market in the United States and Mexico by the end of March. The automaker said it expects to sell 50,000 in its first production year.
The new model borrows some quirky retro touches from the old Bug: big, round speedometers and gauges, bulbous fenders, passenger grab handles and built-in running boards.
The move to resurrect the Beetle marks a big change for the German-based company that for years tried - with limited success - to divorce itself from its econocar heritage that began with the humble Bug born in 1938.
While breaking with history today, Volkswagen hasn’t forgotten it - specifically in terms of the former Beetle’s roughly three-decade, United States run that ended in 1979.
By the late 1960s, the Beetle was one of most common cars on American roads. Slow, noisy but economical, reliable and easy to fix, the Bug’s unpretentiousness drew a cult following of college students and the Flower Power generation as the counterculture alternative to the era’s gas-guzzlers.
The Beetle starred in the 1969 movie “The Love Bug” starring Dean Jones, then “Herbie” sequels and a brief run in a 1982 television sitcom.
For years, Volkswagen was the top import in the United States. It wasn’t until 1975 that Japan’s Toyota outsold Volkswagen as more modern Coronas and Corollas made the Beetle look and feel outdated.
Worldwide, the Beetle remains the most popular car ever made. Still in limited production in Mexico, more than 21.3 million have been sold in 180 countries, including 4.7 million to Americans by 1979.