VW’s New Version of ‘Bug’ Off to a Fast Start in the U.S.
As Beetle-mania mounts in anticipation of next week’s launch of the new Volkswagen “Bug,” VW dealers are drawing up waiting lists, taking deposits and reportedly fighting off the temptation to tack thousands of dollars on to suggested list prices.
VW executives also are salivating at the thought that Germany’s biggest car maker, after years of playing second fiddle to those upstarts from Japan, will again be a major player in the U.S. market.
VW hopes to sell 50,000 New Beetles--the four-seater’s official name--in the U.S. next year, but says it will take about six months for the world’s sole Beetle plant, in Puebla, Mexico, to begin producing enough cars to meet anticipated demand.
Advance demand for the car, whose list base price is $15,200, has caught VW by surprise. VW officials say they don’t have an exact count but that it appears that the company’s 597 U.S. dealers have taken deposits for as many as 2,000 of the cars. Even Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates is on a list.
In Southern California, the region’s 34 dealers have pre-sold about 400 of the cars. Most buyers will have to wait weeks, perhaps even months, to get the cars they ordered, however.
“I’ve never seen anything like this in 17 years in the business,” said Jeff LaPlant, general manager of Volkswagen of Santa Monica. “Demand has been growing for months.”
The first of the cars, which are high-tech reinterpretations of the VW bugs that provided millions of Americans their first set of wheels in the 1960s and ‘70s, are being shipped to U.S. dealers on Monday. The New Beetles are expected to hit Southern California showrooms by the end of next week.
Presale lists for heavily hyped cars aren’t unusual--Mazda dealers had them when the Miata was new, as did Saturn when that General Motors division made its debut. But this is a first for VW, whose dealers not long ago were wondering how to keep their franchises afloat.
Volkswagen, which stopped selling the old Beetle in the U.S. in 1977, doesn’t intend pin its hopes on a single model, as it did in the old days. It plans to introduce several new products--one could be a high-end sports car--in coming years. By early 1999, VW says, it will have redesigned all but one model in its six-car U.S. lineup.
But the New Beetle--designed at VW’s North American styling studio in Simi Valley--is expected to be the catalyst.
“This will get us back on the map, and we’re gonna start rocking and rolling,” said an enthusiastic Dante Day, new-car sales manager at Ray Fladboe Volkswagen in Irvine.
Indeed, the auto maker recorded a 29.2% sales increase in the U.S. last month over January 1997. Last month was its best January since 1988, said Liz Vanzura, marketing director for Volkswagen of America Inc.
A special lease promotion and an advertising campaign for the sporty new Passat sedan helped, but many of the sales were to people drawn to VW showrooms by the publicity surrounding the New Beetle.
At its peak in the U.S. in 1970, VW sold 569,696 cars in this country, two-thirds of them Beetles. VW was the leading import brand and No. 4 in sales in this country, with a 6% share of the market.
But VW was battered by stiff competition from Japanese imports in the 1970s and ‘80s, and its market share shriveled. Sales sank below 50,000 for 1993, but the company has since regained some ground. Last year, VW sold 137,885 cars--accounting for 1.6% of the U.S. market--trailing the three domestic manufacturers and five of the nine Asian companies selling cars in the U.S. If the company hits its goals for next year, Volkswagen could leapfrog several places in the rankings.
Many of the early buyers are nostalgic former Beetle owners like Carol Robbins. The 51-year-old equestrienne and her husband, a retired police officer, have owned six VWs during 33 years of marriage, including two of the old-style Beetles. In December, she plunked down a $100 cash deposit at Capistrano Volkswagen for the right to buy a New Beetle. The dealership has been accepting deposits since late last year, and its reservation list, with 55 names, is one of the longest in Southern California. Owner Miles Brandon says that is largely because his deposit requirement is less than what most other dealers will take.
Commonwealth Volkswagen in Santa Ana is asking for a $1,000 deposit, and it has plenty of takers. “People are telling us they want the first car they can get,” said Mark Hawkins, fleet sales manager for Commonwealth. “They don’t care what color or what options. They just want one.”
Robbins is more selective, however. The former San Juan Capistrano resident, who No. 3 on the list at Brandon’s store, said she has ordered “a red one, with black interior, cruise control, power windows and a stick shift.”
She and her husband have moved to Aspendell, a tiny Eastern Sierra hamlet 15 miles southwest of Bishop, but they regularly make the 300-mile trip to San Juan Capistrano to have their VW Jetta serviced and to visit relatives.
During her service stop at the dealership in December, Brandon showed her a photo of the New Beetle “and I said I had to have one,” Robbins recalled. “I like the modern interpretation of the old 1940s style. And it’s got room. I’m going to fold down the back seat and put my dogs and my saddles inside.”
The new car is a direct descendant of the old Beetle visually, but the two are worlds apart in technology.
The old Beetle was a bare-bones transportation car with a buzzy 46-horsepower engine and a bare-bones price tag. The base price in 1977 was $3,599--less than one-fourth the New Beetle’s base price. A New Beetle’s price can run to nearly $19,000 with options such as automatic transmission, anti-skid brakes, leather upholstery, power windows and power sunroof.
The basic 1998 Beetle comes with either a 90 horsepower diesel engine or a 115 horsepower gasoline engine. Both are water-cooled and front-mounted.
VW pays homage to the old Beetle with a dashboard mounted flower vase (Beetles in Germany had them in the 1940s) and a single round instrument cluster directly in front of the driver. But the vase is made of high-impact plastic, and the gauges light up in high-tech blue.
Despite the high demand and anticipated short supply, dealers say they won’t charge more than the manufacturer’s suggested retail price for the New Beetle.
VW cannot dictate pricing, but the company does control allocations of its cars, and it has made it clear that it will not be pleased with dealers found to be jacking up the price.
Initial plans call for half the Puebla plant’s output, or about 60,000 New Beetles a year, to be sold in North America. The remaining 60,000 New Beetles are scheduled for the European and Asian markets, with deliveries to dealers overseas scheduled to begin in about six months.
That delay has created a degree of Beetle envy in Europe.
Ferdinand Piech, VW’s chairman, drives the only New Beetle now on the road in Germany and says he can’t pause very long before crowds gather around the car.
He said a driver recently pulled up next to him at a red light and “offered me 10 times the price if I would step out and give it to him right there.” Piech said he didn’t take the offer.
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
Meet the Beetles
How Volkswagen’s New Beetle compares with the legendary one:
Old Beetle (Type I)
Seats: 4
Base price: $3,599 in ‘77*
Engine: Four cylinders, air-cooled, rear-mounted
Wheelbase: 94.5 inches
Length: 163.4 inches
Width: 61.0 inches
*
New Beetle
Seats: 4
Base price: $15,200
Engine: Four cylinders, water-cooled, front-mounted
Wheelbase: 98.9 inches
Length: 161.1 inches
Width: 67.9 inches
*The year U.S. sales were discontinued.
Source: Volkswagen of America
Researched by JANICE L. JONES / Los Angeles Times
More Power to ‘People’s Car’, Beetle History
1935: Ferdinand Porsche designs and builds first Beetle prototype with hopes of creating a “people’s car.”
1938: First Beetle produced.
1945: By the end of World War II, Volkswagen factory is nearly destroyed; Allied forces help rebuild factory and begin placing orders. British army orders 20,000 Volkswagens.
1949: First Beetles shipped to U.S., list price is $800
1960: 500,000th Beetle imported into the U.S.
1977: Last Beetles sold in the U.S.
1978: Last Beetle produced in Germany. Production and sales continue in Mexico and Brazil.
1981: 20 millionth Beetle produced.
1996: Production of the Beetle ends in Brazil. Volkswagen plant in Puebla, Mexico continues to produce about 400 a day.
1998: The New Beetle introduced in U.S.
Source: Volkswagen of America; Researched by JANICE L. JONES/Los Angeles Times
Associated Press
