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Hemmings Motor News Blog

Hemmings Motor News has been around since 1954. We're proud of our heritage, but we're also more than the Hemmings full of classifieds that your father subscribed to. Aside from new editorial content every month in Hemmings, we have three monthly magazines: Hemmings Muscle Machines, Hemmings Classic Car and Hemmings Sports and Exotic Car.

While our editors traverse the country to find the best content for those magazines, we find other oddities related to the old-car hobby that we really had no place for - until now. With this blog, we're giving you a behind-the-scenes look at what we see and what we do during the course of putting out some of the finest automotive magazines you'll ever read.

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After 30 Years, Then 20 More, Volkswagen Kills the Beetle (Again)

Posted September 24, 2018 10:00 AM by dstrohl

The original Volkswagen Beetle was the symbol of a generation, so beloved that VW revived the model after a two-decade absence to rekindle consumer passion for the brand. The New Beetle arrived as a 1998 model, and was replaced by the newest evolution, the A5 Beetle, in 2012. Now, after a 20-year run, Volkswagen has (once more) announced the end of Beetle production for July 2019.

By the early 1990s, Volkswagen had lost its way in the United States market. As Phil Patton relates in Bug: The Strange Mutations of the World’s Most Famous Automobile, sales were down — dropping as low as 50,000 units in 1993 — and quality control of Mexican-built Golf and Jetta models was a major problem. German Volkswagen executives even discussed pulling out of the American market, but some within the U.S. organization — namely, California studio design head J Mays — knew that the path to the company’s future could be found in its past.

VW discontinues the reincarnated icon of 1960s counterculture.

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#5 "Re: After 30 Years, Then 20 More, Volkswagen Kills the Beetle (Again)" by SolarEagle on 09/28/2018 11:42 AM (score 1)

Brave Sir Robin Guru Join Date: May 2007 Location: Annapolis, Maryland Posts: 7277 Good Answers: 422	#1 Re: After 30 Years, Then 20 More, Volkswagen Kills the Beetle (Again) 09/24/2018 12:48 PM
	Not surprised that sales were dropping around the '93 time point, that's when the Mark III came out, probably the least desirable of the platforms in a long time. My daughter's '96 Jetta had all sorts of gremlins. Mark I's rusted out so fast, but the Mark II was quite good. My son is still driving the '87 Jetta he came home from the hospital in. Then I didn't really care for the Mark V's. Something about the 'odd' platforms? I would stay away from the higher performance or fancier VW's. They seem to have the lion's share of maintenance headaches. VW is very good at building solid, basic transportation. I love my base model Mark IV Jetta. The only time this car has died on me was when the fuel pump failed (in my driveway thankfully) at 140,000 miles. It has 200,000 on it now. There is beauty in simplicity. (Not to mention reliability.)
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JPool Guru Join Date: Apr 2012 Location: Detroit MI, USA Posts: 2497 Good Answers: 269	#2 Re: After 30 Years, Then 20 More, Volkswagen Kills the Beetle (Again) 09/24/2018 3:31 PM
	__________________ How we deal with death is at least as important as how we deal with life. --CAPTAIN KIRK, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
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SolarEagle Guru Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: at the beach in Florida Posts: 31320 Good Answers: 1733	#5 In reply to #2 Re: After 30 Years, Then 20 More, Volkswagen Kills the Beetle (Again) 09/28/2018 11:42 AM
	__________________ Break a sweat everyday doing something you enjoy
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70AARCuda Guru Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Tucson, AZ Posts: 1331 Good Answers: 30	#3 Re: After 30 Years, Then 20 More, Volkswagen Kills the Beetle (Again) 09/24/2018 5:47 PM
	An "hecho en Mexico" BEETLE would be a "Escarabajo" (wink) although the name "Cucaracha" (cockroach) might sound better. __________________ ...and the Devil said: "...yes, but it's a DRY heat..!"
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Bayes The Engineer Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Albany, New York Posts: 5170 Good Answers: 129	#4 Re: After 30 Years, Then 20 More, Volkswagen Kills the Beetle (Again) 09/27/2018 8:33 AM
	I remember when they brought it back in the nineties. It was quite the popular car amongst the young in the early 2000s. This feels like a natural progression. I look forward to its return in the 2030s.
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