Volkswagen New Beetle
1998 revival of the classic compact car
The Volkswagen New Beetle is a compact car introduced by Volkswagen in 1998, drawing heavy inspiration from the exterior design of the original Volkswagen Beetle. Unlike the original Beetle, the New Beetle has its engine in the front driving the front wheels, with luggage storage in the rear. It received a facelift in 2005 and was in production until 2011, nearly fourteen years since its introduction.
In the 2012 model year, a new Beetle model, the Beetle (A5), replaced the New Beetle. Various versions of this model continued to be produced in Puebla, Mexico, until the final car left the assembly line on 10 July 2019.
History
At the 1994 North American International Auto Show, Volkswagen unveiled the Concept One, a "retro"-themed concept car with a resemblance to the original Volkswagen Beetle. Designed by J Mays and Freeman Thomas at the company's California design studio, the concept car was based on the platform of the Volkswagen Polo. A red cabriolet concept was featured at the Geneva Motor Show, also in 1994.
Production design approval was reached in mid-1995, with a design freeze resulting in 22 months of development time for production. In October 1995, the Volkswagen Concept Two was shown at the Tokyo Motor Show, essentially an early preview of the production model due in early 1998.
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This entry incorporates text from “Volkswagen New Beetle” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.