What’s bugging you? No, seriously, what’s with the beetle brows? Puns apart, the Beetle’s one of the world’s greatest motors. Vardhan Kondvikar gets all misty-eyed about his dream car.

I grew up with Herbie.
Number 53 was as much part of my childhood as tiffin boxes, Sunday morning cartoons and being bullied at school – all the movies, even the less interesting Herbie Rides Again (which, and I’m not kidding, I used to believe was called Herbie Goes Right, for some reason), were seminal. They were gospel. Of course Beetles, all of them, were alive, were faster than Porsche 917s, and all did that strident beep-beep in traffic; at age six, I didn’t know or care about Ferraris or Mercs, but I’d be damned if I didn’t have a Beetle when I grew up. One with racing stripes, a fairly feisty character and one that would pee oil on “bad people’s” shoes.

And then of course, I never did get one, or drive one, or even sit in one. Life sucks sometimes. But this is a red-letter day, three Beetles served up on a platter (don’t think of it in terms of food and you’ll be fine) for my pleasure. One of them is a pretender, the New Beetle, with its Golf-based front-wheel-drive chassis, its straight-four engine and its blatantly non-people’s car price. It doesn’t seem worthy of the name I think, not a patch on the original Beetle, but then I’m told there’s no such thing as an ‘original’ Beetle. Even the two identical-looking cars here, of the ‘original’ kind, are worlds apart. Eh? Wassgoinonere?

To swallow this, you need to wash it down with a good gulp of history. You have to go back to Der Fuehrer, who was clearly not as cuddly as his creation. Still, Hitler had some good ideas among his loony ones. I mean in between growing that damnfool moustache and murdering millions, he virtually wiped out unemployment in pre-war Germany and made some sophisticated autobahns. Similarly, the idea of a car that everyone could afford was great, but why insist it look like an insect? No one’s quite sure what went through that charming eccentric’s mind, but it appears he was inspired by the streamlined, rear-engined and equally weird Tatra, made in Czechoslovakia. Not to put too fine a point on it, he stole the design. Tatra sued, and possibly to avoid tedious court battles, Hitler invaded the country.

Getting back, Hitler commissioned Ferdinand Porsche to design the car, and had some prototypes made by Daimler-Benz in 1935; it would be called the KdF-Wagen (Kraft durch Freude, or the Strength through Joy-car.) However, only a handful of cars had been produced before the war intervened, and production of passenger cars was abandoned in favour of the Jeep-like Kubelwagen and the amphibious Schwimmwagen, on the same platform.

After that the Golf happened, and that was that. And fast-forwarding a few years takes us to the present, past four generations of ‘original’ Beetle (see what I mean now?), along with spinoffs like the mad Baja Bug, the pretty Karmann Ghia and, um, the New Beetle.

The first car we have here is from the original original generation – a 1957 convertible. It looks adorable, round, infantile – if my mom were here, she’d have adopted it. And yes! It makes that noise, that tickety-tickety flat-four beat interspersed with induction whistles, a cacophony from entirely the wrong end of the car. And you’d better leave your expectations of slush-moulded plastics and tactility studies behind, because that metal and vinyl cabin will chuck them right out. But it doesn’t matter, because you’re having too much fun. In fact, the fun-factor in a Beetle comes not just from driving it, but simply from being
in the vicinity of it, like an aura – you look at the car and the world seems brighter. Sit in it and you’re Donald Duck. Girls look at you and smile, other drivers look at you and smile, and I swear a Labrador on his morning walk grinned at me as well.

But crikey – it’s not easy to drive, is it? Grunting through a U-turn, trying to get that slippery white Bakelite steering wheel to turn, or trying to stand on the brakes, hoping you don’t land up on the rear seat of the car in front… talk about an involving drive. And the driving position is so laughably offset you feel like you’re scuttling sideways, like a crab, reaching halfway across the cabin for the ignition key and looking over your shoulder and grinning as the flip-arm indicators pop out of the sides.

It’s a week since that drive as I write this, and I’m still snickering. Wise people say love is a powerful type of attraction to someone or something, despite a thousand flaws. I guess that’s it, then.

The green car is from 1969, a car that looks much like the first Beetle, but is in fact very different. The crucial thing about this car is the differences between it and the ’57 car – they may look similar, but you can’t interchange any body panels (except the greenhouse and the doors, which are the devil to change), and much of what’s underneath is completely different. The lights are different, the bumpers are different, even the W-shaped “bonnet” is different. It’s a bit wider too, and has a larger front and rear track, the rear increased to control rear-engine oversteer. The electricals were beefed up as well, with a 12v system instead of 6. The big change is a 1.5-litre flat-four instead of a 1.2, with eight more horses, an engine that sounds particularly sweet. It’s perhaps a bit more ‘normal’ to drive (and surprisingly zippy!), but it still has character coming out of its ears. Which is the main thing, really. This big change- over happened in ’67, with further changes along the road when production was given over to Mexico; incidentally, Herbie’s always been a pre-’67 car, even in the new movie, which I don’t want to see. Lindsey Lohan. Hmph.

Where does the New Beetle fit into all this? Nowhere really, except for VW’s reasoning that plenty of LSD-crazed hippies rather took to the original Beetle, and now, having chucked their guitars in favour of the suits they fought so hard against, may be persuaded to buy a new one. And so the New Beetle was born, a boutique car for those who had money but needed attitude, instead of transport for the masses, a car which fitted a bit wonkily into a serious, quality-driven VW line-up. Can you imagine Dr Piech being cute? Exactly.

To be honest, I wasn’t looking forward to checking out this car. It seemed like sacrilege; I would’ve felt better if VW had called it the New Hipushit. Styled by J Mays, it was recognisably a Beetle, with its domed roof and bug eyes, but it was perhaps trying too hard to replace the Beetle, which is irreplaceable. It even came with a flower-vase for the dashboard, which we could have done without, thanks very much. But look at it with an open mind – by which I mean one unclouded by hash cookies and Jimi Hendrix – and you’ll recall it’s based on the Golf, which is not a bad car at all. The New Beetle’s decent to be in, with a solid and quite pretty dash, some space at the back and surprising performance. And it’s got air-con, which you really appreciate on a hot October morning. It’s a very normal, modern and capable car, and slick too, a bit firm- riding perhaps, but fun and definitely polished. A fast Beetle? One that isn’t in a movie? Amazing, that is. It’d be even better as a convertible – and indeed, the drop-top’s won several awards. In fact, it’s a very good car.

So what’s the problem? Why do I still turn my nose up at it? The problem is that it’s a good car, but it’s not a great Beetle. The old Bug was a car for people who either didn’t have much money or didn’t feel the need to spend much.
The new one’s for those who have money but want to look like they don’t. It’s a ‘lifestyle’ car, which means nothing. Ask someone in Bolivia or post-war Germany what that is and he’ll look blankly at you, but he’ll know exactly what you’re talking about when it comes to the original Beetle, which is practical and fun and couldn’t care less what Cosmopolitan says about it. With the new car, you get the sense that it’s playing to the galleries, that it’s trying to get you to think of VW as being not dour and worthy, but lovable and exciting. And it doesn’t work.

There’s one thing about it though, it proves a point. VW tried for years to kill off the Beetle with the disastrous Type 3 and Type 4, and only succeeded with the Giugiaro-designed Golf in 1974. Now the Beetle’s back, and ironically, it’s based on the car that killed the original Beetle, the story coming full circle. I like that. Feels good to know you can’t keep a great car down.