VW New Beetle 10 Years Old

Mexico and the board of management at Volkswagen celebrated the tenth anniversary of the current VW Beetle today. One million of these comeback cars have been built in Mexico, the exclusive manufacturing hub of Beetle II, since 1998. Feels longer. In contrast, MINI, Beetle’s main retro-rival, hit one million within six years of introduction.

At the same time VW and all the 300-plus distinguished guests were popping champagne corks on Puebla to mark the announcement of a USD1 billion three-year investment in production and capacity optimisation for the production of Jetta models. The main destination for Jetta is of course the US. Chairman of the board of VW Dr.Martin Winterkorn said:
“As our only production location in North America to date, Puebla plays a key role in our growth strategy for North America. Volkswagen de México and the Mexican supplier industry are certain to benefit from this.”

Beetle II was not the instant hit it was initially expected to be, despite massive publicity generated by VW itself, as well as other fan entities like Hollywood. It was the Prius of its time. Nevertheless an average production schedule of 100,000 per year is not at all bad. The plant will also be producing the next generation Beetle.