The Volkswagen Beetle 1999-2011 FULL REVIEW

Volkswagen Beetle 1999-2011 FULL REVIEW

Jonathan Crouch writes an in-depth Volkswagen Beetle 1999-2011 review. If you want to watch more reviews on vehicles like this Volkswagen Beetle 1999-2011, make sure to SUBSCRIBE to our channel and comment what YOU want us to review next.

You'll either love or hate the 'new' Volkswagen Beetle. Some will celebrate it as an icon brought up to date, whilst others will feel it's a sad pastiche of a best-forgotten relic and a Golf in drag. Whatever way you look at it, the Beetle is here, it's sold rather well and it's great fun to own. It might not attract the crowds or cause the slack jawed stupefaction it did when it was launched, but a Beetle will still put a smile on many driver's faces. Is the bug back? Most think it never really went away.

To be quite frank, we don't have much to thank Adolf Hitler for, but the KdF-Wagen (kraft durch freude - strength through joy) that was launched in 1941 certainly had something to be said for it. Fast-forward half a century to the mid 1990s, and over 22 million Beetle sales later. Volkswagen's designers produced the Concept 1 show car that received such a tumultuous reception that production of the new Beetle was ordered. First arriving on these shores in February 1999 in left-hand drive form only, the Beetle was an immediate success, although many took advantage of cheap European imports to drive costs down further. Around 800 'official' left-hand drive models were sold in the UK before the right-hand drive models started to be produced in decent numbers from the factory at Puebla, just outside Mexico City.
Late 1999 saw the introduction of official right-hand drive cars, which like the first models were powered by the venerable 2.0-litre 115bhp seen in the Golf, Bora and Passat since 1992 (new Beetle old engine). Despite promises of a wider engine range, it wasn't until the summer of 2000 that Volkswagen introduced another variant, the 1.6-litre. This 102bhp petrol unit was new not only to this car but to the entire Volkswagen line-up and acted as an import-busting value proposition for the Beetle range. 2.3-litre V5 and 1.8T engines were subsequently added to the range alongside a 100bhp TDI diesel. In early 2003 Volkswagen at last began imports of the eagerly awaited Beetle Cabriolet in either 1.6 or 2.0-litre forms and by summer 2003, a 1.4-litre engine had been added to both saloon and cabriolet versions and the 1.9-litre diesel also appeared in the drop top car, giving it a distinct Beetle thrum. Just from the wrong end.
A facelift announced in the summer of 2005 saw the wheelarches get sharper edges, the headlamps reshaped and round red taillights introduced round the back.


Writer - Jonathan Crouch

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