> We get a design scholar to parse the VW icon’s new look.
How do you re-create an iconic car like the Beetle? VW is trying to answer this question for the second time. While the original Beetle left the U.S. market in 1979, its legacy continued in Mexico until July 2003. In 1994, VW unveiled the Concept 1, a car inspired by ?the original Beetle and conceived in the company’s Simi Valley design studio in California. Rave reviews prompted VW to make the New Beetle for 1998. Beetle-hungry customers kept supply short for a few years, but after the newness faded, the car sold slowly. Now, more than a decade later, VW is launching a new new Beetle, called simply “Beetle” this time around. It’s more masculine than its bud-vase–bearing predecessor. So which one is truer to the original? We spoke with Gernot Bracht, design professor at the Pforzheim, Germany, transportation-design school to find out.
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