[my last hijack of this thread, I promise]
Sorry, Coldie - you are correct, of course.
Back to your regularly-scheduled Beetle thread.
[\my last hijack of this thread, I promise]
Hey, I bought a 1973 Standard Beetle on Monday! It amazes me how many parts you can still get, new, from Germany. Just spent $75 on odds and ends last night. No more, I guess. Spectacular timing on my part, as usual.
Are the Mexican Beetles called cucurachas?
The new Beetle looks like it ought to have a big rotating key sticking out of the roof. Or a AA battery compartment. It looks like it’s made out of plastic!
As far as I know they’re still making them in Mexico. There used to be tons of them around here about fifteen years ago. Folks would customize them to look like little Bug/Rolls Royces, really wild paint jobs, and my favorite was the snazzy little metallic acid lilac convertible with poison green interior. God my ten year old, color-slut heart pined for one of those.
Some do look like they have a handle attached. 
Today’s Mexico City newspaper Reforma reports that the VW plant in Puebla will quit making the Beetle by the end of this year if not sooner.
I’m sorry to hear that the best car that mankind could make is not going to be made anymore. I’m sure we’ll never see its equal again, though admittedly no capitalist business could possibly afford the R&D. Far ahead of its time, and indeed ahead of our time in some ways, the Beetle will be remembered.
OK, nobody else said it, so I’m going to - I’m sorry they ever started making the things in the first place. God, those things are ugly. And no, I don’t just mean the new ones.
They still make them? How the heck can I get my hands on a new Old Beetle?
The Beetle was designed in the 1930s, and its style was contemporary to other designs of the day – “Bulgemobiles”, I call them, since cars back then looked like big dumplings. In that contect, I don’t see how they could be considered “ugly”.
VW had an ad in the 1960s where they compared an old Beetle to a new (1960s) one. They said that they did not change styling for the sake of changing styling, but instead focused on function. The Beetle was a very functional car. Its low-revving, low-compression engine was designed for longevity and fuel efficiency. It could carry two adults and two children confortably, or four adults in relative comfort. Its domed shape made good use of interior space. Inside, VWs were austere. A classic case of form following function. There is a certain beauty in a design whose form comes from what it is meant to do. IMO the old Beetle is beautiful.
The New Beetle could have any shape. Clearly it was designed to bring back the look of the Beetle. Its form, I think, is more for the sake of styling than for functionality. Still, I’ve driven one. It’s quite comfortable. There is ample room in the back for two adults, although the rear pillars curve in a bit much and reduce usable headroom. The extremely deep dash is, IMO, a waste of space. Still, I think the New Beetle is “cute”.
I’m no expert, but I’d say you’d have to “federalize” it. This includes bringing it up to modern emissions and crashworthiness standards. That might be rather expensive to do, if not impossible. If you’re serious, you may want to google “grey market cars” to see if it is possible to bring a new old Beetle in from Mexico. I think I heard that the car would have to be “used” to be brought in under whatever rules there are; but as I said, I am not an expert.
Some of the not-so-recent Mexican models are already here. I have no idea where to find them for sale but there’s a few 1997-1999 old-style Beetles in the US.
There were a couple of companies that specialized in Beetle restoration. You’d send them your old, tired Beetle and they would import, uh, shall we say, a whole lotta new Beetle parts from Mexico, and voila! you have a new Beetle. IIRC, the price ran in the $8-9,000 range.
I don’t know if they’re still around.
You scared me also!! Just bought a DOUBLE YELLOW. I do have one problem… People won’t keep their hands off of it!!
Do they keep trying to hug it?
YES!!! lol It’s so DAMN cute!
Johnny, not to hijack too badly, but do you know anything about restoration? You strike me as the kind of guy who’d know about such things. Do you have any favorite websites, books, or just general advice? (Other than “Don’t”, of course.) 
Excuse my hijack.
Low-revving? My G’pa was telling me about when he got a Beetle in the 60’s (or whenever) and he specifically mentioned one aspect: “every car I’d driven before was meant to be revved low, but this one was just the opposite. The point was to rev it high.”
Is he crazy? Did different bugs drive different ways?
masonite: I’ve started a Car restoration thread.
The VW 4-cylinder “boxer” engine was designed in the 1930s. It developed 25 hp at 3,500 rpm from 1,131cc and had a compression ratio of 5.8:1. Compared to modern 4-cyl. engines, this is rather slow. I think (and I will be corrected if I’m wrong) that modern engines deliver peak horsepower at around 5,000 rpm. But compared to the old American engines, which I assume are the ones your grandfather was familiar with, 3,500 rpm might seem “high-revving”. For comparison, my 1999 Jeep Cherokee 4.0L six runs at around 2,500 rpm or so in normal traffic.
So the venerable Beetle run comes to an end.
Gross polluter that it is, it was produced in Mexico only since 1978 and not available for export to the US for lack of smog and crash certification.
I suppose compared to the US gas hogs of the 60’s it might have seemed fuel efficient back then but it too is a gas pig compared to modern vehicles of similar weight and engine displacement.
The rear engine rear wheel drive combo produced some truly evil handling characteristics in snow, but the compression ratio was so slow it didn’t take too much to get them to turn over on the coldest days. The engine was so under-stressed, a million miles on the original motor was not unheard of.
IMHO, sales of the New Beetle really took off initially because of it’s inextricable link to the US 60’s hippie counterculture movement, whereas in Europe the original Beetle was just another cheap car.
VW sold about 30,000 original Beetles last year and could no longer justify the production capacity. As long as anyone can make a buck at it, however, parts should be available for a long, long time.
Long live the People’s Car.