Paul A. Eistenstein’s (2019) story about the end of production for the Volkswagen Beetle makes an odd editorial decision. He treats the Beetle as a unified product line that stretches all the way back to 1938. Then he compares the high sales of the original, rear-engined Beetle with its front-engined successors and declares that the latter “never really connected with buyers.”
One doesn’t have to be an apologist for VW in order to see this as a strained argument. The original Beetle was a high-volume economy car. The “new” Beetle, which was unveiled in 1997, was an upscale personal coupe of sorts. A niche product.
Also see ‘Is brand management really an automaker’s No. 1 priority?’
What makes the new Beetles sociologically interesting is that they represent the ultimate “postmodern” car — what you see isn’t what you get. The second- and third-generation Beetles may have had styling cues that evoked the original, but their functional qualities are dramatically different (go here for further discussion).
By the same token, VW executives have been quite honest about selling new Beetles on “emotion” (Stoklosa, 2018). That’s the polar opposite from the original, when VW marketing relentlessly emphasized the car’s practical features.
This is why you couldn’t recreate the magic of the Doyle Dane Bernbach ads that helped turbocharge sales for the original Beetle. As further discussed here, the ads were able to stand out only because the product was so different.
The new Beetles were naught but a quirky styling exercise that played upon older buyers’ nostalgia for the 1960s. The cars could never have achieved the legendary status of the original because there was nothing unusual about them except for the shape. Oh, and the flower vase.
One shouldn’t be surprised that new Beetle sales were much lower than those of the original. This was a cheap “brand management” trick that had a limited shelf life. Quite the opposite of the original Beetle.
It’s actually a good thing that the Beetle’s production ended. Hopefully VW will respect the dead and not resurrect the nameplate once again. Current management clearly doesn’t understand the Beetle’s legacy enough to avoid caricaturing it.
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RE:SOURCES
- Eistenstein, Paul A.; 2019. “End of the Line: Last Volkswagen Beetle Rolls Out This Week.” The Detroit Bureau. Posted July 9; accessed July 9.
- Stoklosa, Alexander; 2018. “Volkswagen’s Beetle Could Morph into a Electric Four-Door.” Car and Driver. Posted July 3; accessed July 4.
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