Auf Wiedersehen, Mein Freund

Of all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, "the Beetle is dead." After a pretty good run, the second incarnation of the People's Car is finished as of the end of model year 2010. The Volkswagen Corporation is doing just fine, danke vielmals (sounds like "dunk a fieldmouse" and means "thank you very much"). But the Beetle will have to slip off into memory once again. So let's wander off into a little old nostalgia, some recent ruminations, and some speculation about a third incarnation for the doughty little beast.

I'm sure you all know that the original VW was the creation of the famous Dr. Porsche. Although his party loyalties were very poor, he still followed the orders of Der Fuehrer because he was obsessed with the concept of creating a car for the people which would fit Hitler's criteria. Most noticeably, the car had to be cheap enough for any German family to afford, yet rugged and easy to maintain. Porsche succeeded--beyond his own wildest expectations.

Hitler didn't last. The Beetle did. In fact, in slightly modified form, the original incarnation lasted nearly seventy years. Millions of nearly-identical cars were produced. Oh, sure, they got rid of the split rear window, enlarged the windshield, changed the headlights a little, but it was mostly cosmetic. The spartan interior didn't change much either. Basically, seats with no patterns or designs, and simple pedals and a steering wheel for the driver. Originally, there wasn't even a gas gauge. You simply waited for the car to start sputtering, turned a valve, and got the remaining gas you needed from a small reserve tank. Four on the floor was standard, but it didn't exactly have the same meaning as it did for later American muscle car drivers. The car needed four gears just to get the low-powered, air-cooled aluminum engine up to the top speed of about 65 mph decreed by Hitler. And that took about thirty seconds. Parts were easily and cheaply purchased, and even the most amateurish of home mechanics could do most of the work themselves.

The car was "cute." It developed the affectionate nickname of beetle, or bug very quickly. People didn't like their VWs, they loved them. They became family members, often with names. People painted them in all sorts of creative ways so they could find theirs in a crowded parking lot. Often, a starving student with a crumpled fender on his tan VW could only find a bargain-priced replacement in blue or black. And often it remained that way for the life of the car. And somehow, that only made the car more lovable. You could bury it in snow overnight, and yet there was a substantial chance the car would kick over almost immediately when you hit the starter. Legends abounded about drivers inadvertently driving off the road into rivers and floating in their air-tight unibody VWs to a place of safety.

Toward the end of its run, the engines were enlarged, the interiors made a little fancier, a gas gauge was added, and they even came up with a little trick they called the "automatic stick shift." I actually owned one of those. Every time I did the lazy American trick of leaning my hand on the stick on the freeway, the transmission went out of gear and the engine roared like a dying lion. The stick, you see, was also the clutch which allowed you to go from forward to reverse. Meanwhile, the Japanese imports began to creep up with lower prices, more powerful engines and more variation to choose from.

The second incarnation didn't fare as well nor last as long. The new beetle appeared in 1998. But it was a completely different car. It was designed to appeal to those younger people who thought the VW beetle had been a cute car, but had no idea what its actual purpose was. The base price was a killer for those who didn't have extra bucks to spend on "cute." The simplicity was gone beneath the familiar exterior. The rear air-cooled little engine was replaced with a much more elaborate front engine drive with standard transmission train. Cheap and easy maintenance was gone. Most amateur mechanics wouldn't even attempt a simple oil change. And they even had things like electric heat, air-conditioning and power windows. In other words, it looked like a beetle, but it wasn't really a beetle. And when the novelty wore off, sales dropped like a stone. The competition for the market niche had expanded immensely, with the addition of names like Scion and Kia for the plain-jane market.

So could there be a third incarnation? The original was rendered impossible to put on the road near the end of its run by huge government demands for emissions control, crash survivability, and interior safety features. But the Germans are a creative lot, and the main attractions of the first people's car have now been put back into the mix. With the economy slipping, affordability is a major concern again. People are looking for smaller, simpler, cheaper and more efficient cars. With some clever safety additions, and a way to make the old engine less polluting, that cutie might just make its way back onto the market in the future.

The dung beetle was the ancient Egyptian symbol for resurrection. It seemed to disappear into the earth with a ball of dung, only to reappear later in greater size and strength, frequently along with a whole breed of new offspring. Don't be surprised if you someday see the beetle emerge from a pile of government dung, better and cuter than ever.