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VW unveils new Beetle
January 5, 1998: 4:30 p.m. ET

Volkswagen hopes new design of 'Bug' will mark return to glory days
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Retro is in. Just ask the folks at Volkswagen, who unveiled on Monday an all-new version of the once-popular Beetle.
     Hoping to tap into the nostalgia that helped turn the Beetle into a cultural icon, VW said it plans to start selling the bubble-shaped car again in the United States this spring.
     For many Beetle fans, it's about time the car made a comeback.
     "Everybody's very excited," said Sean Homayoun, a sales manager at a Volkswagen dealership in Santa Monica, Calif. "There isn't a day that goes by that I don't get half a dozen people asking me about the car."

    
Photo of new Beetle

    
Photo of the new Beetle

     Indeed, during the height of its popularity in the late 1960s and early 1970s, it was hard to drive down a highway without spotting one of the little cars, affectionately known as "the bug."
     All told, by the time VW had stopped selling Beetles in the United States in 1974, more than 21 million of the cars had been sold, surpassing Ford's Model T as the world's best selling car.
     VW officials, hoping to woo a new generation of car buyers, told reporters and analysts at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit Monday the new Beetle has many of the same characteristics of the old model, but also contains a host of 1990-era features, including side airbags, CD players and cup holders.
     "The new Beetle cannot deny its origin and the magic of its shape," VW Chairman Ferdinand Piech said. "We believe the new Beetle is not just another car."
     "Some may have predicted a retro car, but as you can see, the New Beetle is a completely modern design, almost futuristic," said Clive Warrilow, president and chief executive officer of Volkswagen of America Inc. "It is designed to appeal to people who fondly recall the past, as well as young people who have no connection at all to the original."
     To help launch the new Beetle, VW set up a special page on the Internet so loyal fans could watch the unveiling live from Detroit. However, by mid-afternoon the page was so swamped, many would-be visitors could not access the site.
     VW hopes to begin selling the car in March starting at $15,200. The German automaker hopes to sell 50,000 of them in North America in its first full year of production.
     VW certainly has a lot riding on the new Beetle.
     In 1968, VW sold nearly 399,674 Beetles in the United States, making the German automaker the most successful import automaker in the country.
     For many motorists the VW Bug was the perfect commuter car. Simple, inexpensive and durable, the Beetle provided solid transportation to an entire generation of car buyers. When gas prices soared in the 1970s, the Beetle's high gas mileage made it more popular than Detroit's larger and more expensive gas guzzlers.
     However, as Japanese imports started to become more reliable, the VW Beetle quickly faded into the background. Despite repeated pleas from loyal fans, Volkswagen finally stopped selling the car in the United States in the late 1970s.
     Not surprisingly, VW's U.S. sales also tumbled, falling to just under 50,000 vehicles in 1993.
     Unlike the old Beetle, which featured the engine in the back and the trunk in the front, the new model has the engine up front. However, gas mileage, which helped make the Beetle such a hit 30 years ago, remains among the highest for small cars at 48 miles per gallon.
    
Picture of Beetle's engine

    
Front view shows engine under the hood

     Homayoun, the Santa Monica dealer, said the upcoming Beetle is generating interest from both ends of the car-buying spectrum.
     Older people, who owned a VW Beetle 30 years ago, have been coming into the dealership asking about the car and first-time buyers are wandering in to see what the car looks like, he said.
     "This is going to be like the Miata was 10 years ago, he said, referring to the popular Mazda two-seater that helped Mazda carve out a place in the roadster market.
    
Vintage Beetle photo

    
Vintage Beetle

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     -- by staff writer Jerry Dubrowski

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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.