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Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd
Volkswagen will stop making the Beetle car next year, ending nearly seven decades of production in North America, the company has announced.
The company's American unit said it would halt output at its plant in Mexico after making two special edition models of the third-generation bulbous bug in July 2019.
[...] The car sold for about 30 years in the US before it was taken off the market in 1979. Production continued in Mexico and Latin America.
Volkswagen revived it in 1998 as a more modern "New Beetle", attracting mainly female buyers. The company revamped it for the 2012 model year in an effort to make it appeal to men, giving it a flatter roof, less bulbous shape, a bigger trunk and a navigation system. US sales rose fivefold to nearly 29,000 in the first year, but tailed off after that.
[...] Volkswagen has no immediate plans to revive the Beetle again, but the company wouldn't rule it out. "I would say 'never say never'," the CEO of VW of America, Hinrich Woebcken, said in a statement.
I thought they'd stopped making this over a decade ago. Do they still make the New Beetle?
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/sep/13/volkswagen-to-stop-making-its-iconic-beetle-in-2019
(Score: 2) by black6host on Thursday September 20 2018, @12:18AM (3 children)
I learned to drive in an old beetle, back in the 70's. I loved those cars. They stopped selling them here in the states but when I went to Cancun in the 80's it seemed that the beetle was all that taxi drivers drove. I remember wishing I could bring one back. The new beetles, yuck! Like I need a car with a flower vase in it, lol.
Still, I have lots of good memories in those bugs but I'm afraid I'm too tall and uncoordinated to have really, really good memories, lol.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday September 20 2018, @02:07AM (2 children)
Easiest car on the planet to work on too. You don't even need an engine hoist to pull the engine. You can either lift it out by hand or you can brace it on a jack and lift the car off of it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by black6host on Thursday September 20 2018, @03:13AM
A true utilitarian car. Heat sucked though if you were in colder climes... :)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ElizabethGreene on Thursday September 20 2018, @03:15AM
My dad and I arm-power lowered the engine in mine onto a skateboard and rolled it out from under the car.
I miss that car. It was the first clutch I ever replaced. I don't miss the lack of heat, air conditioning, or basic safety features. :/