|
|
| History |  |
|---|---|
| VW the Company | |
| Beetle Family-Users | |
| Memories | |
| Videos | |
| Beetle Merchandise |
The genesis of the New
Beetle started in 1993, so 5 years before its official commercial launch.
As many constructors do, Volkswagen builds concept cars to show its know-how
to costumers at auto shows. For the '94 Detroit Auto Show, Volkswagen A.G
asked its design studio in Simi Valley, CA to study on a concept car to
commemorate the Beetle which is THE history of Volkswagen, especially in
the U.S, where it was a huge commercial success, and which is still very
popular ! The result of their work was the Concept 1, a very rounded, Beetle
shaped, front engined, compact yellow car. It already had many security
features, such as ABS, airbags and side impact protection. The public had
a great reaction to this concept car, many people even asked when should
it be in the show rooms. A concept car is not generally the first step
for a production vehicle, even if we now have great examples especially
with Chrysler who built the Viper and the Prowler, two previous concept
cars. Seeing the reaction of the public, VW decided to go on with this
concept and built for the Geneva Auto Show a red convertible version of
the Concept One. It's usually called Concept Two eventhough VW never named
it. In Swiss too the reaction was enthusiastic .... everybody (almost !!
) asked VW to produce this nice car. VW finally said it would go on production
before the year 2000. For the Tokyo Auto Show in early '95, VW built another
concept car, but a step closer to the production model. The new car, black,
simply called Concept was wider and longer than the two previous ones,
it was based on the A platform (Golf) while the two other were based on
the A0 one (Polo).
The production process going on, for the '96 Geneva Auto Show, they presented another version of the Concept one, a yellow/gold car renamed New Beetle, its production name !!! We were closer than ever of the production !!!! .... After having wait for more than two years, since the '94 Detroit Auto Show, we would finally see it on the road ....... Las ! VW, delayed the production, and we had to wait for another year and a half to see it in its final production version in January, 98, the 5th to be exact, at the '98 Detroit Auto Show (eventhough we had seen some spy pictures in the paper few months before !).
Now, since this great date, the Baby is happy, the mother (VW) too !!! The New Beetle is a success, people run to the showrooms, VW see its sales increasing on all its models and it even has difficulties to provide customers all the new Beetles they want .... there still are waiting lists at the dealers.
VW increased the production in the unique plant in Puebla, Mexico to around 180.000 per year and plans to go up to 200.000 per year starting next year. The New Beetle has not yet reached Europe (It'll be presented at the Mondial de l'Automobile in Paris, Oct 1st-Oct 11th) and it's already hard for VW to produce enough .... I'm very sorry about that !!! VW seems to underestimate the sales on every new model ... they recently had the same problem here in Europe with the new Passat and then with the new Golf. I think they should have better estimated the success of the New Beetle .... such a car could only be a huge success !!!! I can't understand how they could imagine only 50.000 would have been sold in '98 in the US !!!!!
More recent news say that VW plans to build the New Beetle also in Europe, at their home plant, in Wolfsburg, if employees are okay to work on saturdays without being paid a lot more. I don't think they will refuse as already 20% of the pre-orders in Germany for the New Beetle are made by VW employees !!!!! .... They love it !!
