An icon of the automotive industry takes final spin
Volkswagen bids farewell to a car that captured the world’s attention twice
When a manufacturer pulls the plug on a vehicle — even an iconic one — it usually goes out with a whimper. Not Volkswagen’s last Beetle. Nope, the last “love bug” rolling off the line is definitely going out with a bang. The Beetle may have begun in 1945, but it was when car advertising was essentially reinvented in the 1960s that the Beetle blasted into pop-culture relevance. The huge plant in Puebla, Mexico, started making Beetles soon after it opened in 1965. By 1978, Germany had ceased production of them, so all Beetles for the world were made in Mexico after that. The first-generation Beetle bit the dust in Canada in 1979, after selling nearly half a million since 1952. Everyone has an original Beetle story. Scraping the windshield from the inside in winter? Check. The tiny glove box that holds a pack of Chiclets? Ditto. Literally cranking open the sunroof to sing Motown hits at the top of your lungs as you drive to the cottage? OK, some stories may not be so universal. The second-generation “New Beetle” appeared in 1998, followed by the Convertible in 2003. Throughout this time, Puebla continued to make the first-generation “Ultima Edicion” until 2003. The New Beetle sold 42,588 units in Canada between 1998 and 2010. Sporting a vase with a loopy flower, among other whimsical touches, the Beetle was quickly tagged a chick car. VW eventually decided to go after more of the whole market with the launch of the Beetle in 2012, essentially squashing it down a little for a more streamlined shape, and adding a bigger trunk and more advanced infotainment systems. That jacked sales a little, but they settled back down — and so here we are. There aren’t any significant changes to Final Edition Beetle. It was never a car you could talk someone into buying, but it was also one you could never talk them out of. The birthplace of nearly every Beetle you see, the Puebla facility, is huge. Over three million square-metres on a plot of 310 hectares, it employs 14,000 VW employees, though a total of 42,000 people from many related industries come through the doors to work each day. It’s a self-contained city, with everything from supermarkets, a hospital, banks and cantinas. VW Puebla even has a private bus station with 130 routes to get employees to work. If you’ve ever experienced Mexico’s traffic, you’ll know why that was a wise decision. In Mexico, you’d have your arm rapidly bruised playing punchbuggy-no-punchbacks. And the models spotted everywhere, sporting varying degrees of love and decay, are mostly the originals. That’s a compliment to the brand, as well as the design. Which brings us to 2019, and the Final Edition Beetle, or the Wolfsburg Edition in Canada. VW will continue to sell the current Dune