Volkswagen to end production of old-style Beetle car this year

BERLIN (AP) - Volkswagen said Friday it will stop making the original rear-engined Beetle later this year, bringing the curtain down on the nearly 70-year history of the classic "bug."

Production of the last old Beetles at the VW plant in Puebla, Mexico, will "end this summer," spokesman Fred Baerbock said, adding that an exact date was not set.

He said there had been sinking demand for the original model, made only in Puebla since 1978.

The first version of what would become known as the Beetle was developed in 1934 under the guidance of Adolf Hitler, who wanted to build a "people's car" - or in German, a Volkswagen. It first entered mass production after the Second World War.

Over the decades, the VW became a favourite of both thrifty postwar Germans and 1960s American hippies before competition from Japanese compacts elbowed it aside.

Volkswagen sold more than 21 million of the cars over the decades, but says it produced less than 30,000 at Puebla last year.

Puebla will continue to produce the New Beetle sedan, a modernized successor to the cult car, which hit the market in 1998 and has a chassis based on the VW Golf.

© The Canadian Press, 2003

Can you say sad, very sad?? Although I'm crazy about my New Beetle, this story still makes me sad.

Probably, though, they'll quit making them, only to re-tool them someday and charge us nostalgic, rich boomers an arm and a leg for the real thing! Ok, besides being sad, I'm a tad bit cynical too.