Autocar has learned that Volkswagen is about to sign off a new version of the Beetle, with the project going to the company’s management board for final design approval.
The new Beetle will, like the current model, use shared Golf components. Company insiders insist that it will stand apart from the current car and will definitely position the driver ahead of the roof curve – one common criticism of the current car is that it’s styling appears to put the front occupants in the back seat.
The current Beetle is still based on the mechanical platform of the mk4 Volkswagen Golf – the European model in the corporate line-up to use this component set. Despite its age, sales of the current version have been doing well recently, apparently helped by increasing interest in other retro-styled models like the new Mini and Fiat 500.
VW clearly believes it can make a business case for another version – which could be with us as early as 2010.
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Re: The next VW Beetle
What a constructive comment that is! Not a sweeping generalising in the slightest
I've driven my old boss' beetle convertible. Its smooth and comfortable, but thats it. Its slow for a 2.0, isnt that economical, doesnt handle too well, zero rear view, and the smallest boot opening in the world i am sure. But for some that doesnt matter as its what they like. If it was fun ti drive I could see the appeal, but it isnt
Re: The next VW Beetle
Only gay men drive new Beetles? Interesting thought process there James. I'm not even going to go into what you think gay men do with flowers.
I had an original 1302S when I was a much younger man and it was the simultaneously the worst car in history and the one I loved the most, even to this day. I went sideways up a motorway slip road once- scary to say the least and I was always running out of petrol because the fuel gauge was broken. I could reel off a list of potentially fatal flaws with the car but, at the end of the day, the exhaust note alone was enough to make me forget about all of the bad stuff. No other car has ever had that effect on me.
For all that, I would have loved to get a new Beetle as a second car but I never did. It always seemed like a rather cynical, corporate marketing exercise that had no actual connection to the original car. Sounds like a similar story for the new Mini and the new 500, except for the fact that both those cars are fantastic to drive, which negates the cynicism entirely. The new Beetle was never good to drive, it was never particularly easy to use and it didn't reward you for your sacrifice by being a great drive either.
I hate to be negative about it, but- I think the new Beetle concept is inherently impotent all the while it relies solely on an aesthetic appeal to get it's point across. A rear engined rear wheel drive pastiche would be significantly more authentic an experience but who wants to go sideways up motorway sliproads? There has to be some substance behind the new one, some weightloss for sure, some serious rethinking about the root concept and a value for money element that is distinctly missing from the entire VW brand.
Perhaps that's all it is? Perhaps if it was £6000 I'd have got one long ago?
Re: The next VW Beetle
I see quite a lot of Beetles around and, while it is not the best resolved design in the world, quite a lot of the people who drive them (including a perhaps surprising number of men) seem to be smiling while they are sitting and motoring along in a usually sublimely unaggressive manner. Maybe that is the point of having a car with a vase.
Anyway, certainly can't see that it is any worse a Golf derived exercise than a TT plus, of course, were it not for platform sharing neither car would exist and there would simply be more bread and butter Golfs on the roads which would make the world a duller place.