The New Beetle: 23 Smiles Per Gallon
At the end of a memory lane rooted in nightmares of Nazi Germany, here was the moment of proof. Only two questions loitered above the reinvented Volkswagen Beetle for a jury of its seers.
Would driving the reincarnation be an unfortunate reunion with discomfort and forgotten compromises? Like returning to boot camp for a month?
Or would this little car reclaim the ladybug charm of originals that tens of millions of Americans drove from the ‘50s into the ‘70s? Back then, a Beetle was a personal pixie, a faithful and cherished family retainer that just happened to live in the garage.
Our jurors--150 automotive journalists from 10 nations--rode a Gumball Express of 55 Beetles through Georgia for less than a day before delivering their verdict:
Despite definite flaws, this is a competitive compact for today. It is New Age redux, of course, but a thoughtful merging of modern technology with most of the sensory appeal and all of the immortal practicality, even impractically, of yesteryore’s motorcar.
Eminence grise Leon Mandel, columnist and publisher of Auto Week magazine, voted early and wrote in absentia.
“It captures the spirit of another time and bestows it on a current generation,” went Mandel’s blessing. “Building a product that makes people smile isn’t easy to do, and if you can do it, it’s a truly wonderful thing.”
Praise, indeed, from an expert who remembers the Old Beetle as an ill-mannered device--slow, uncomfortable, evil-handling and not very roomy.
“It’s just a cutie,” said Denise McCluggage, author, race driver and former first lady of European sports car circuits. She owns a Suzuki Sidekick, so is quite familiar with cars and cutes. “Coming or going, look at that smile.”
And so the New Beetle--priced from $15,200 and poised to bounce into showrooms in April--began a second reign with a Peach Blossom Love Fest that proved, once more, that America’s affection for cars is indestructible.
A school bus stopped and kids were let out to see Herbie ride again. Adults waved and yelped at the passing parade as if each rolling bug carried an Atlanta Brave.
Old Beetles flashed lights at New Beetles, a friendly courtesy that will mystify Lexus owners. One senior Georgian invited the press to stop and photograph the new car alongside his rusted-out ’67 Beetle lying in state in the front yard.
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By the numbers, Old Beetles were a rolling Guinness Book of World Records. They remain in production--although only for Third World distribution--after threescore years and counting. More than 21 million have been built, more than any car in history. More than Ford’s Tin Lizzie.
Through resales, 120 million people have owned a Beetle. On a single day in 1969, 31 babies were born in one. Nobody has estimated how many children were conceived in one. And, of course, 24 college students can be stuffed into a Beetle.
Its CV is equally impressive, although dingy in spots. The car was ordained in 1938 by Adolf Hitler, who said it would be the Volkswagen, the People’s Car, of the Third Reich. (It also was known as the KdF-Wagen--Kraft durch Freude--for “Strength Through Joy,” another Nazi bromide.) Ferdinand Porsche designed the car, slave labor built it, and its earliest drivers were the then highly privileged--Nazi soldiers.
After World War II, with the Volkswagen plant bombed to bits, British auto makers passed on exhuming the Beetle. As did Henry Ford II.
A reconstituted West Germany revitalized the Volkswagen in 1949, and American shipments began. Only two cars were sold that first year. The importer spent his profits on a ticket back to Germany.
Then America fell trunk-over-headlights in love with this $1,200 oddball without a gas gauge and a heater with only two settings: Igloo Breath and Mt. St. Helens. Seats were lumbar crushers, acceleration times were measured by tide tables, and with a top speed of 62 mph, it was barely freeway qualified for life in the slow lane. Oh, and late on a clear night, its chuffa-chugga-chuffa exhaust betrayed many a Love Bug owner’s hot and hasty exit.
The car was inexpensive, spirited, mischievous, implied his free thinking and her unconventional ways, was a ton of fun, and not even its copywriters took the Beetle seriously: “After a few years, it starts to look beautiful. . . . Do you earn too much to afford one? . . . A car for $1.02 a pound.”
Brigitte Bardot, Paul Newman and Princess Margaret drove Volkswagens. More than 250,000 miles on an original engine was not uncommon. Nor were collections of 100 Beetles--a name, incidentally, created by an inventive America.
It was set adrift: Waterbugs of America Racing Assn. kept a Beetle afloat for 45 minutes before it settled and sank.
It underwent cosmetic surgery: A common nose job was the addition of a faux Rolls-Royce radiator.
It created a schoolyard game: Grade schoolers still play “Slug Bug,” where they see a Bug and slug the nearest biceps.
And so the little Beetle became a large legend, and now there likely are more people with memories of this car than there are those who remember what they were doing when President Kennedy was assassinated.
Still, in 1977, plagued by poor sales and compact competition from Asia, crimped by federal safety and pollution demands, the Beetle went away. So, eventually, did Volkswagen’s prestige in the United States.
Fast-forward to 1993, when Volkswagen was seriously considering dumping its American operation. J. Mays and Freeman Thomas were doodling for inspiration at VW’s design studio in Simi Valley. Mays thought of benchmark products, of Harley-Davidsons, Levi’s and, of course, Volkswagen’s heritage earned by the little Beetle that did.
Easy from there. Mays and Thomas drew and sculpted Concept I, which picked up the Beetle story and styling where it left off--but re-engineered for the ‘90s with disc brakes, front and side air bags and a proven, modern power plant. It could be a gasoline or diesel engine. Or be propelled by electric motor.
A year later, Volkswagen displayed Concept I at the North American International Motor Show in Detroit. An older nation of buyers who remembered when--plus a younger population that remembered what it had been told--begged for the Beetle’s return. A woman in Kingsford, Mich., even sent in a $500 check as her down payment on a car that didn’t exist yet.
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Last month, the New Beetle, the product of a $560 million development program, again appeared at Detroit. Within days it was up to its domed roof line in adulation and remembrances and early orders.
Last week, here, Volkswagen executives were quick to balance mysticism with a hard fact of marketing: Nostalgia may excite interest in a product, but old memories won’t sell it.
“The New Beetle is not simply a copy or a revival of the original car,” said Robert Buechelhofer, marketing chief for Volkswagen. “But the New Beetle does live in the same emotional context. It is unique, it is lovable . . . but something completely new, a state-of-the-art car.”
Writer McCluggage concurs. If Volkswagen had simply rebuilt the Old Beetle, the company might again have sold just two cars in one year. “People don’t want the car back, they want those times back. They want their hair; they want their flat stomachs back.”
So in the 1999 Beetle, look for touches and traces of the old: See substantial simulation but not a perfect facsimile. Know that despite the global applause, Volkswagen has reached no deeper than the Mazda Miata’s brush with British sports cars of the ‘50s and the Plymouth Prowler’s deep bow to the hot rod culture of the ‘40s.
The 1949 Beetle was rear-engined, rear-driven, air-cooled, weighed 1,600 pounds and produced 30 horsepower. The 1999 Beetle is front-engined, front-driven, liquid-cooled, weighs 2,700 pounds and delivers 115 horsepower. The new one is longer, wider and taller than the old one, with an even-tempered heater and air-conditioning. And it has a fuel gauge.
Yet there is no mistaking that looping silhouette of yesterday, chuckling front and rear ends and, overall, the silly but quite harmless look. It beckons to be your friend again.
The Volkswagen logo, front and rear, remains oversized and unmistakable. So are large, round, jeweled headlights mounted as much for facial expression as for forward illumination.
Touches of the past are all over the place. There’s a fat grab handle above the glove box, and subway strap-hangers’ loops for back seat riders. Instruments are still housed in one circular dial the size of a discus.
Just like the awkward but sometimes good old days, base models come with window cranks. They are geared to lower and raise windows in six turns. (Long and picky memories will recall they used to do it in three turns.)
The final, darling touch of history, a deft dab of elegant nonsense that may even become a deal maker, is a dashboard bud vase yawning for its daisy. That’s the way it was when flowers represented power and protest, Janis Joplin, free love and fury among conservatives. About the only thing missing is a roach clip in the ashtray. But then, a green conscience these days dictates no ashtray at all.
In truth, the New Beetle is a rebodied, plastic-fendered Volkswagen Golf, an expedient that has been lightly criticized by some. But it would have been foolish for Volkswagen not to borrow the proven chassis, engine, transmission and suspension from Europe’s No. 1 car.
Two engines are available, the 115-horsepower, 2.0-liter, in-line four, and a 90-horsepower, 1.9-liter, turbocharged diesel. The former gets 23 mpg in town and 29 mpg on interstates. The latter will deliver an average 42 mpg, has better initial acceleration, and burns cleaner. But a diesel still doesn’t make much sense in a country where diesel pumps are few and far between, and the oily fuel may cost 30% more than gasoline.
Both engines come with a five-speed manual or four-speed automatic. And if the thought of spending $18,000 on a Beetle doesn’t terrify you, the car is available with leather upholstery, power windows and locks, a CD player, alloy wheels, cruise control, fog lamps, sunroof, heated seats and several other desirables Adolf never dreamed of.
Upright, firm but quite comfortable front seats offer enough headroom for Abraham Lincoln and stovepipe hat. But the coming-and-going, Beetle-backed design means rear seats are a pretzel factory.
Windshield pillars look narrow enough but broaden to bell-bottoms at the base, which adds an element of blind faith to making turns. With the engine up front, the trunk moves to the rear, with cargo space revealed by opening and raising the entire rear deck, window and all. Lower the rear seat backs, and you’ve got a Beetle flatbed.
Although top speed is 114 mph--and several journalists signed radar tickets to prove they got close--initial acceleration is a slightly jerky loaf to double digits.
But that lack of hurry, almost a forced leisure, was an intangible appeal of the original Beetle.
So was its need to creep gently through stop signs, because to halt was to lose valuable speed that took too long to recover. So was our habit of slowing early because Beetle brakes were no anchors. And so was the delight of a long gearshift throw across neutral to third, a built-in excuse for brushing a passenger’s knee and oops-ing it off as an accident.
You just know these subtleties were calculated by Volkswagen to tease us back into believing the way we were. Or today’s copywriters wouldn’t have come up with an advertising slogan that promises: “A car like this comes around only twice in a lifetime.”
