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. :/
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 20 2018, @12:21AM (3 children)
I thought there was the "classic" Beetle and the "modern" Beetle that came out in 1998. But it looks like VW will stop making all Beetles; thus the headline is misleading.
(Score: 2) by black6host on Thursday September 20 2018, @01:12AM
Maybe for now but we have this (from the summary):
And I agree, it's confusing. My take is that they are discontinuing all beetles. In other words, production will shut down everywhere. For now. They did make them this year (New Beetles 2018). I'm not sure when they discontinued classic beetles production. Wikipedia says 2003 but those were "newer" versions of the classic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Beetle [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by toddestan on Thursday September 20 2018, @03:39AM (1 child)
The "classic" Beetle ceased production in 2003, for the (shortened) 2004 model year. The "modern" or New Beetle really doesn't share anything with the original except the name and the basic shape.
I guess it's not really surprising they're discontinuing it. The New Beetle was a hit in the early-mid 2000's during the whole "retro" fad that also spawned cars like the PT Cruiser, but sales have to be really sluggish nowadays as I almost never see any of the redesigned New Beetles on the road despite them being in production since 2011.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday September 20 2018, @02:52PM
I would say it doesn't even share the basic shape - other than in the way an eagle and a penguin share the same basic shape. The "New Beetle" looks far more like pretty much every other car on the road than it does like a classic Beetle.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 20 2018, @01:29AM (1 child)
Back in the 90s the car pool in my school featured a beetle cabrio, a nasty Giulia 2000 gt coupe, a Fiat 124 coupe (1400cc doing 7000 rpm) and the Opel corsa gt, speedy but alas front wheel drive. Occasionally the lucky ones would bring daddies' Delta HF turbo and 911 2.7.
Then there was the normalfaggot circle with all those shiny new WV golfs, Mercedes, and BMW, too heavy to be a nuisance to similarly specced engines of ours.
Anyway, only two cars had females queuing up for a ride, the porsche yes, but first and foremost the beetle.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @05:36AM
Who are you and where the fuck did you live, I'm from Saginaw and when I went to school in the 80s we weren't allowed to drive to school, you had to either walk or take the school bus, they wouldn't let you bring a bike to school either.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday September 20 2018, @04:41AM (3 children)
The exterior was good. It ably modernized the classic shape. The interior, though, felt much more cramped than the classic one my friend had in high school. Did anybody else find that, also?
I don't know enough about automotive interiors and their dimensions to understand how that can be possible, for two cars with the same wheelbase, from the same company, to have such a disconnect between the exterior and the interior. The Toyota FJ Cruiser is the same way. Looks like an awesome, life-sized Tonka truck on the outside, feels like a clown car on the inside.
Maybe it's Time Lord technology, stealing dimensions away from models like those to make others like the Honda Fit feel bigger on the inside than they appear from the outside.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Thursday September 20 2018, @07:24AM
We upgraded the front seats of a 1960s car with modern seats, giving it headrests, more adjustment for taller people, ability to lean the seat back, and nicer seat belts. But those new seats cut the leg room in the back way down. Modern seat backs are a lot thicker. And if you slide them all the way back, they're almost into the rear seats.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 20 2018, @12:26PM
Had to drive the beetle as a loaner, and it's a good bit bigger than the "classic" ones. Don't know about crampedness, but its interior is more upright/ vertically oriented like truck cabins, and with the tall wide doors, some fat ass told me it's easier to get in and out of.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Thursday September 20 2018, @02:32PM
Modern vehicles need larger dimensions. If you are standing next to an original Beetle, open the door and measure the thickness. Then look at whatever car you are standing next to. Unless you are at a Beetle convention, you'll see a huge difference. This is one example of the differences that make modern vehicles safer, quieter, and more comfortable.
(Score: 2) by drussell on Thursday September 20 2018, @12:16PM
The real, original Beetle was produced from 1938 to 2003.
The "New Beetle" was produced from 1997 to 2010.
The current Beetle, which started production in 2011, is built on the same "A5" chassis as the Jetta.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday September 20 2018, @02:34PM
I did QA drive testing for a third party contracted to Volkswagon for a summer about 15 or so years ago. I remember liking the New Beetle, liking the Jetta even more, found a European prototype of something like what's now the Touareg interesting, hated the Audi TT, and the Audi A5 was good but overhyped. The Beetle had a turbocharger that was fun to kick in - about a one second delay and you'd get a small kick from the acceleration.
I don't know about the new Jettas, but it will be one I test drive when my current car bites it. I forgave VW for the testing BS when it happened.
This sig for rent.