Volkswagen Beetle

By the late 1990s, with the turn of the century approaching, retro is a popular theme. Various car manufacturers are responding to this by coming up with retro models. Think of the Chrysler PT Cruiser, the Ford Thunderbird and the return of Mini. Volkswagen also participated in the trend and introduced the New Beetle. The modern reincarnation of the classic Volkswagen Beetle was built on the platform of the Golf and also appeared as a Convertible.

By the late 1990s, with the turn of the century approaching, retro is a popular theme. Various car manufacturers are responding to this by coming up with retro models. Think of the Chrysler PT Cruiser, the Ford Thunderbird and the return of Mini. Volkswagen also participated in the trend and introduced the New Beetle. The modern reincarnation of the classic Volkswagen Beetle was built on the platform of the Golf and also appeared as a Convertible.

tougher
After an interim facelift in 2005 and many special editions, the New Beetle remained in production until 2011. That year the second generation appeared, but before that, Volkswagen did a number of things differently. For example, the name was changed to just ‘Beetle’ and the car got a somewhat tougher styling with a slightly lower roofline. For example, Volkswagen hoped to achieve more success with the Beetle than with the New Beetle, which had actually only proved successful in the US.

End of an era
The Beetle was indeed better valued than the New Beetle, but the success still fell short of expectations. The introduction of special versions and the tough Dune version with ‘off-road clothing’ changed little. In 2018, the Dutch importer already decided to stop supplying the model and in 2019 the Beetle also went out of production worldwide. In a sense, this brings an end to an era, because for the first time, Volkswagen no longer supplies a ‘Beetle model’.

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