Today’s Post by Joe Farace
…but Not How You Think
There’s no more iconic vehicle on the planet than the original air-cooled Volkswagen Beetle. VW attempted to capture lighting in a bottle with the New Beetle (1997–2011) a car I that actually owned—a 2001 model—and like many latter day VWs, mine was beset with unending quality control issues. VW tried again with the Beetle (2012-2019) and it’s a much better car then the New Beetle. So much so that several years ago I purchased a 2016 Beetle convertible for Mary to replace her money pit Mercedes-Benz SLK 350. You can read all about her Beetle here. Compared to my previous New Beetle and even my old GTI this has been a wonderfully dependable car and Mary loves driving it.
In it’s day the Beetle was the anti-car especially next to the giant chrome bumpered cars of the 1950’s and amazingly enough it is also the anti-car of the new millennium as it stakes it claims among cars that look so much alike that Toyota has taken extreme (and ugly some might say) measures in designing the front fascias of it’s and their Lexus automobiles.
The final original Type 1 VW Beetle (serial # 21,529,464) rolled off the production line at Puebla, Mexico on 30 July 2003, 65 years after the original launch, a victim I think of Mexico requiring that all taxis should have four doors. Yet the original VW Beetle takes us to our “safe spaces” where life is simple and you can paint the car with bright colors and “wear some flowers in your hair.” But…
The VW Beetle has existed in several iterations for more than 80 years but was discontinued when the company announced it was ending production of one of its most popular cars throughout the 20th century. The final Beetle ever made, a Denim Blue coupe, was built on July 9, 2019 in Puebla, Mexico and will go on display at VW’s museum there.
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