Volkswagen Beetle
Euro · Volkswagen
Volkswagen Beetle: The People's Car Icon
The Beetle is one of the most iconic cars ever made, the rear-engined people's car that became a global cultural phenomenon.
The original Beetle, with its air-cooled rear engine and distinctive rounded shape, became one of the best-selling cars in history, with over 21 million built across a production run spanning from the late 1930s into the 2000s in some markets. Affordable, durable, and charming, it motorized the masses worldwide.
Volkswagen revived the concept with the front-engined New Beetle in 1998 and a sportier successor in 2011, both trading on the original's beloved retro shape and cheerful character, though as modern front-wheel-drive cars.
The Beetle was finally retired in 2019, closing the book on one of the most significant and recognizable nameplates in automotive history.
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Where the engine sits sets the hood length, the cabin position, and the balance, and you can read it from across a car park. Front engine gives the long hood people read as expensive, mid engine drops the nose and collects mass at the rear, and rear engine gives the 911 its unmistakable falling tail.
Around 90 percent of people see a face in the front of a car, and 94 percent see one in production models. Headlights act as eyes and the grille as a mouth, and slanted lights over a downturned grille read as anger. Designers aim that deliberately, which is why so many cars look angry.
Volkswagen Group design chief Andreas Mindt says the industry's push toward mean-looking cars is nonsense, and that most buyers would rather their car looked happy than intimidating. The ID. Polo and ID.3 Neo are his evidence.
There are expensive cars everywhere. Most of them will be forgotten. The Porsche 911 will not be forgotten. Neither will the Ferrari Testarossa, the original Land Rover Defender, the Volkswagen Golf GTI, or the first-generation Mazda Miata. None of those last two cost anywhere near what most people think of as an iconic car's price. Expense has almost nothing to do with it...