I read that VW is phasing out the New Beetle shortly...

80,000 have been built....

which is low volume for Volkswagen...


they are looking at introducing a new new beetle maybe next year...

LEE

your figures are incorrect, 1.1million have been made in mexico alone, i heard somewhere more than 21million had been made worldwide they produced more new beetles in 10 years than old beetles in 40+ years!

Definitely more than 80,000 New Beetle's produced, but nowhere near as many New Beetle's made as they made aircooled Beetles.

Some production numbers on TheSamba... and yes it's not guaranteed 100%, but it lines up with other factory quoted figures that I've seen in the past.

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/archives/info/beetle_productionfigures.php

It is more like 800,000 and they are not stopping it, just introducing an updated model based on Golf 6 mechanicals instead of Golf 4.

Yogie

hope they make the one new look a bit different from the front to the back. Its hard to tell if they are coming or going.

It's not 80,000, it's not 800,000. The 1,000,000th New Beetle was produced in 2007, shortly before the 10th Anniversary edition was announced, so as Jon says they would be up to around 1.1 million by now.

That roughly compares with the original Beetle, as the 1,000,000th example was made in 1955, about 10 years after proper production began. However the original Beetle went on and on, production increasing every year right up to the maximum of 1.3 million PER YEAR in 1971. In total, there were 21,529,464 original Beetles (including Superbugs) made from 1945 to 2003 when production finally ended in Mexico.

In fact Jon, more original Beetles were made in ONE YEAR (1971) than the total number of New Beetles made in 12 years so far. Not surprising, as the New Beetle was never more than a niche model made on a Golf platform. It was a success in the US market, but a failure in the rest of the world.

I think the figure Lee means is that around 8,000 have been sold in Australia in ten years - it debuted here in January 2000. It averages around 600 per year, when VW now sells around 12,000 Golfs a year here.

1 million New Beetles in 10 years

http://carscoop.blogspot.com/2008/02/vw-new-beetle-celebrates-10th-birthday.html 

I wish they'd put the engine back in the right place at least!

I remember writing just those sentiments in the club magazine over 12 years ago, when it was still called the Concept One!

Unfortunately it won't ever have a rear engine. There's no way that VW would spend money developing a unique rear-engine platform for a model that has struggled to sell 100,000 units a year - and is only made in Mexico. And even if they did, VW doesn't make flat flour engines any more - it would still be a transverse in-line four Golf engine. It's far more efficient to just bung a Beetle-ish looking body on a Golf platform. That's why they're killing off the current New Beetle - it's based on the old Mk4 Golf, which was superceded eight years ago. The 'Mk2' New Beetle will be based on the current Golf Mk6.

The original Concept One was based on a Polo platform and was considerably smaller than the eventual production model - thank goodness they took a bit of time to develop it further.

I originally despised the New Beetle, but I've changed my mind over the last four or five years. Now I think it's a useful niche model. It acts as a 'bridge' between the old air-cooled era, and VW's modern range. Americans don't 'get' modern VWs so it's perfect for them. I reckon there's plenty of aussieveedubbers here too who hate Golfs and would never buy one - but would buy a New Beetle. That's where it's useful.

i just acquired an 07 T5 lwb..
thank fook the engine is outta da back so its easier to carry all important crap about..