Volkswagen Beetle review (05/12/2012)
That irony might not be lost on many people, particularly as the car was originally commissioned by Adolf Hitler — who, after all, wanted to conquer large tracts of the world — as part of his National Socialist vision for a modern German in which everyone had either a car or a tractor.
The ‘Volks Wagen’ — people’s car, literally — was thus born, and
although Germany’s war effort
decreed that the majority of the cars built between 1939 and 1945 were for military use and never really got to the people, it was in the post-war
period that the Beetle — as it has
become known in common parlance — really made its’ mark.
Produced in enormous numbers (21m were made) over nearly 60 years before production was halted in 2003, the Beetle truly achieved the aim of the people who designed it in the first place.
Even while versions of the original were still being made new in Mexico, in 1998 VW went back to the well and produced the second generation Beetle. This car was a modest critical and commercial success, but pretty much everyone agreed that it was not really a spiritual successor to the original.
After all it was very cutesy and it
also had a little vase — for flowers — on the dashboard, and that single fact probably turned off every potential male owner globally.
Consequently the majority of the owners of the one million or so versions sold before it was discontinued in 2010 were female.
Now VW has gone to the well once more and we now have the third generation Beetle, more than 70 years
after the original and this time they are hopeful a design which is more faithful to the original — and considerably better looking than the second generation — will broaden the appeal, particularly for male buyers, and add a bit more to the Beetle legacy than the car its replaces.
On encountering the new machine, one cannot but we taken by the cap-doffing the designers have
indulged in. Look at the faux running boards on the flanks, or the upright and largely metal dashboard with the old-style glove box incorporated in it and you have an immediate connection with the original.
In fairness, they have not exactly ditched some of the cutesy elements of the second generation machine, and the excessively rounded front and rear wings have largely remained unchanged.
However, the car is now based on the Mark VI Golf platform and consequently it is now bigger, has seen the interior extensively revised and is now stood on more modern underpinnings.
The car we tested was the Sport version with the 1.4 TFSI petrol
engine which has 118 kW (158 bhp) on tap and features both turbocharging and supercharging. This is an
engine we’ve raved about in times past as being astonishingly proficient for its size. In this instance it will achieve the 0-100 kph dash in 8.4 seconds and top speed is 208 kph. It will also
return 6.6 l/100 km (well over 40 mpg) over the combined cycle which is a decent enough return, but not spectacular.
The Beetle as tested has a multilink suspension layout at the front, but only a torsion beam arrangement at the rear, and this does not make it the most sophisticated handler and sort
of belies the ‘Sport’ handle.
There will be a multilink version — as is the case with the Golf — in due course, but not yet.
Even so the wider track of the new car has enhanced grip levels, and while the Beetle might be a bit
fidgety over some surfaces, its general behaviour is decent enough, if not startlingly brilliant.
From a practical point of view the car has a decent boot — the engine is in the front, unlike the original — and the interior is very cleverly and attractively laid out. The one downside is that it will only accommodate four adults, and even then head room in the back is limited, so you won’t be getting too may six-footers in there.
In the case of the test car, it was
fitted with certain add-ons items such as a panoramic sunroof and the very unique 18” alloy ‘disc’ wheels, but prospective buyers should not that departing from the standard specification will add greatly to the cost of the car.
Overall, I liked the new Beetle and thought it obvious VW had done a lot of work to broaden the appeal of the car, but I’m not certain that all that work will pay off for them in the long run. This is still a car which will primarily appeal to female buyers and in that regard it may well have failed in its objectives.
Somehow I don’t think that they’ll be selling 21m of them.
