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BYE-BYE
OLD BEETLE: Production of original model ends in Mexico
July 30, 2003
BY
G. CHAMBERS WILLIAMS III
SAN
ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS
It's
the end of an era: Production of the venerable Volkswagen Beetle will end today
at the company's plant in Puebla, Mexico.
VW stopped building the Beetle, its original "people's car," in
Germany in January 1978, and sales of all but the Beetle convertible had ended
several years earlier in the United States.
The German automaker began mass production just after the end of World War
II, and began exporting them to the United States in 1949.
But since 1978, VW has continued building the original Beetle at its plant
in Puebla. There, in a building next to the modern, automated factory that
assembles the New Beetle, Mexican workers hand-finish the original Beetles for
a market that for the past two decades has included only Mexico and a couple of
other nations.
In recent years, most of the cars went to taxicab and police fleets,
although many still were bought by individual consumers. The old Beetles have
been used throughout Mexico, but most prominently in Mexico City and Puebla.
Only one model of the original Beetle is still produced: the 1600 Sedan (the
Beetle name is not used in Mexico), with a 1.6-liter, 45-horsepower
four-cylinder engine. All come only with a four-speed manual transmission.
In Mexico City, two of every three taxis are the special lime-green models
manufactured specifically for the city's taxi fleet.
And in Puebla, a city of about 4 million people, a majority of the taxis are
black Beetles with yellow roofs.
And then there are the police cars. In Puebla, green Beetles marked
"Policia" are on patrol throughout the city.
No, they're not exactly high-speed police interceptors, but then, with much
of the public driving Beetles, too, they don't have to be. (VW specifications
show that the old-style Beetle goes from zero to 100 kilometers per hour --
about 62 m.p.h. -- in 27.2 seconds. Top speed is about 124 k.p.h., or 77
m.p.h.)
Even telephone and cable-TV companies use old-style Beetles as their
installers' vehicles. It's a common sight to see a Beetle marked with the name
of the cable or telephone company, with an extension ladder tied to the top.
At any given moment in Puebla's downtown historic district, one can see
Beetles in every direction. It's common to see a half-dozen or more Beetles
bunched up together at a red light, with just a few other car brands
interspersed among them.
But a recent campaign by the Mexican government to get older, more-polluting
taxis off the streets of highly polluted Mexico City has diminished demand for
the old Beetle, which even with its modern fuel-injection system can't meet
today's more-rigid air-pollution standards.
That, of course, is what forced the car off the market in the United States
and the rest of the world, along with the cars' inability to meet modern safety
standards.
As an icon of the flower-power generation of the '60s, the Beetle was one of
the most popular cars ever sold in the United States, and we still can see many
of the old ones on our streets and highways.
Considering that the Beetle never was considered more than a subcompact
economy car, it seems unusual to see so many used in Mexico as taxicabs, in
which the passengers -- up to three per vehicle -- sit in the back seat. VW
says demand for the old Beetle, even in Mexico where the price of a brand-new
one is about $6,800, has dropped to about 20,000 a year.
Big farewell party
The cars will go out with a bang: Volkswagen is building 3,000
special-edition models in beige and powder-blue exterior colors to commemorate
the end of the real Beetle era. The price of these models will be about $8,000.
Those special models will be sold only in Mexico, however.
VW says the special end-of-the-line model comes with whitewall tires, a
compact-disc player and chrome bumpers. And it still looks almost identical to
the Beetles that were sold in the early '70s, the last model before they were
taken off the market in North America.
They still have the air-cooled rear engine, two big doors, and two bucket
seats up front. The small trunk is in the front and still won't hold much, just
like it was in the '50s, '60s and '70s.
Meanwhile, production of the old VW buses from the '70s continues in Brazil,
and those vehicles are still sold in Mexico for use as municipal buses, private
cars and delivery trucks.
They aren't quite as common as the old Beetles, but everywhere you look in
Mexico City and Puebla you can see a few of those, most of them fairly new. VW
hasn't built those '70s-era buses for the U.S. market since 1979. After 1979,
the bus was replaced by the Vanagon, which since has been replaced by the
EuroVan.
Overall, VW is the most-popular car brand in Mexico, with a 25-percent share
of the nation's new-car market.
Posted July 30, 2003