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Two Woodstock participants aboard their Volkswagen Beetle in 1969. Emblem of the hippie era in America, the car was sold in the United States as adorably cool.
Three Lions / Getty Images
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Three Lions / Getty Images
Two Woodstock participants aboard their Volkswagen Beetle in 1969. Emblem of the hippie era in America, the car was sold in the United States as adorably cool.
Three Lions / Getty Images
It's the end of an era – a time that has been going on for a very long time, although its silhouettes are slightly different.
The latest Volkswagen Beetle, a third-generation Denim Blue coupe, will be produced in Puebla, Mexico on Wednesday.
"It's impossible to imagine where Volkswagen would be without the Ladybug," said Scott Keogh, president and CEO of the Volkswagen Group of America. "Although its time has come, the role it has played in the evolution of our brand will always be cherished."
Emblem of the hippie era in America, the car was marketed in the United States as being adorably cool. Volkswagen has promoted the Ladybug with cheeky advertising campaigns using slogans such as "Live under your means" and "It's ugly, but it's driving you there". In 1969, one of the vehicles cost $ 1,799.
Perhaps this picture – and its good value – helped the car to overcome a proud story: Volkswagen was founded as a project by Adolf Hitler and his first cars were used for civil and military. Volkswagen was relaunched by the British authorities after the Second World War and its car was renamed "Ladybug" to distance it from its Nazi heritage.
It worked. A few decades later, the car was the anthropomorphized star of a series of movies beginning with The Love Bug and Herbie Fully Loaded.
The Volkswagen Beetle will stop production Wednesday in the company's factory in Puebla, Mexico. Here, the vintage Beetles and other Volkswagen models at a VW festival in France in 2014.
Jean-François Monier / AFP / Getty Images
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The Volkswagen Beetle will stop production Wednesday in the company's factory in Puebla, Mexico. Here, the vintage Beetles and other Volkswagen models at a VW festival in France in 2014.
Jean-François Monier / AFP / Getty Images
Volkswagen launched the New Beetle in the 1998 model year, in a fancy vase with an integrated flower vase. It was an initial success, with 80,000 sales in the United States in 1999.
The automaker has reorganized the Beetle for 2012, but sales have collapsed over time and SUVs have become popular in the United States. Volkswagen writes in a love letter to its most famous creation: "Worship is not necessarily synonymous with sale … The Ladybug has failed to achieve the worldwide success of the new" Volkswagen "The Golf."
The current Beetle starts at $ 20,895 and is also available in a sporty convertible. Both finish production on Friday.
The Ladybug is no longer produced in Germany since the 1970s. But production of the original Beetle continued on the Puebla site until 2003, and subsequent editions were exclusively produced in Puebla.
A 2019 Volkswagen Beetle convertible exhibited at the International Auto Show in Pittsburgh in February.
Gene J. Puskar / AP
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Gene J. Puskar / AP
A 2019 Volkswagen Beetle convertible exhibited at the International Auto Show in Pittsburgh in February.
Gene J. Puskar / AP
The Puebla factory has been producing cars for over 60 years and is a worldwide export center for VW vehicles. Once he has stopped producing the Ladybug, he will produce a new compact SUV that will be placed under the Tiguan model of the company.
As the production of the Ladybug ends, do not think that nostalgia is over. Volkswagen plans to launch a new version of its classic VW bus in 2022 – this time it is electric.
And at a time when everything can be restarted, VW has not closed the door to the Ladybug forever.
"[T]Hinrich Woebcken, then chairman and CEO of Volkswagen Group of America, said last year: "I would not say either that we should never say". "
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