In a little over a decade Volkswagen saw its Beetle transform from Adolf Hitler’s dream of the “people’s car” to the foulest of all marketing slurs — a “chick car.” Does the 2012 Volkswagen Beetle finally provide a more manly solution? Hit the jump to read the restof the review.
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The front-engined, front-wheel-drive New Beetle, first launched in 1998, was as far away as Volkswagen could get from the simple rear-engined, rear-wheel-drive formula that made the original the longest-running and most-manufactured automobile of a single design platform anywhere in the world.
But nevermind the mechanics. Everyone knows the people of our male-dominated society buy cars for their looks. The old New Beetle’s flower vase? Funky pastel colors? A body shape with the same side profile as the three-breasted alien hooker from Total Recall? According to marketers, all these things alienate the vast majority of men. It makes them feel insecure about themselves, their sexuality, and their inability to find a woman with three breasts.
Sure, a car with a feminine side can be a novelty at first — especially if it strikes a chord with a public looking desperately for anything reminiscent of times gone by. But keep the design around too long and it’s tantamount to sales suicide.
And Volkswagen saw the New Beetle do just that — sales plummeted from a high of over 83,000 in 1999, its first full year of production, to just over 16,000 in 2010.
And that’s why Volkswagen hopes the new 2012 Beetle will be seen as more manly than the last one.
