CNN
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In today’s world of self-driving cars, keyless ignition and charging ports, it’s hard to imagine just how large the little two-door Volkswagen Beetle once was.
But in Mexico, where the last Beetle was produced at Volkswagen’s flagship factory in Puebla in 2003, the plucky car lives on. Reinvented and revitalized by its cultural heritage, Mexico is one of the few places where Beetle fever still lingers.
The car’s curvaceous, colorful looks and air-cooled, rear-engine powerplant earned it a reputation and cult status that a gasoline-powered car would never again achieve. While the fond story of this beloved car lives on in our memories, what was once the world’s best-selling car has all but disappeared from American roads, relegated to car museums and collectors’ yards.
Cruising the vast streets of Mexico City and traversing the hair-raising mountain passes of Oaxaca’s Sierra Norte mountains, operating as a converted food truck serving Mexican fare, the Beetle, known in Mexico as “Vocho,” never left the scene.
“When I hear the sound of the Vocho’s engine, I can picture my wife waving at me on the way to the grocery store, and the excitement on her face when I took our son for his first driving lesson,” Jesus Delgado, president of the Ixmi Volks Club, told CNN, just before being interrupted by the distinctive roar of the car as he arrived at Volkswagen’s biggest event in the central Mexican state of Hidalgo. Delgado’s wife died of COVID-19 in 2020, and his sons are all adults now, but he said “being near the car makes the emotional memories feel even more real.”
The first Beetle arrived in Mexico in 1954 as part of an exhibition showcasing German industrial development. Sales were slowly growing in the United States, but Volkswagen was battling postwar anti-German sentiment over the car, which had been conceived in 1934 at the behest of Adolf Hitler.
Hitler had commissioned car manufacturer Ferdinand Porsche to build a small, affordable car, but commercial production was halted at the start of World War II. Production resumed in 1945, when Allied forces discovered the remains of a bombed-out car factory in northern Germany, with a Volkswagen Beetle parked among the rubble.
It took an inspiration from Jewish-American advertising executive Julian Koenig to turn the tide for Volkswagen, who, together with a team of well-suited Madison Avenue ad men, launched the legendary minimalist ad campaign, “Thinking Small,” which shifted Americans away from expensive family wagons to a new reality of small, fuel-efficient, affordable cars for the masses.
But few could have predicted the Beetle’s astonishing evolution into a countercultural symbol and talisman of the American Flower Power movement.
As the Vietnam War raged, the Beetle grew to represent a powerful social movement born out of the nationwide anti-war movement in America, and would remain a symbol of “peace and love” throughout the ages, even making a massive appearance at the Woodstock festival in 1969. The Beetle was underdog and unapologetically simple, beloved by the hippie counterculture and a symbol of anti-capitalist structures. In many ways, the Beetle came to represent everything that Nazi Germany would have hated.
By 1972, it had become the world’s best-produced car, benefiting from the fame of Disney’s “Love Bug” and a strong supply chain that included a new factory in Puebla, Mexico, from which it was shipped all over the world.
The Beetle was made in Mexico longer than it was in Germany, until Volkswagen stopped making the car in 2003 due to declining sales and a desire to build a more modern alternative.
Shortly after the announcement, BBC News reported that “it’s clear the tradition will remain vibrant for years to come.”
But since then, tougher pollution rules and rising fuel costs have seen them gradually disappear from roads in Europe and the United States, remaining a plaything for the rich and famous as they live out their final, dignified chapter outside the public eye.
Actor Chris Pratt restored his 1965 Beetle in 2016, describing it as “a dream to drive through the Hollywood Hills.” That same year, comedian Jerry Seinfeld set a world record for the sale of a Beetle when he sold his white 1960 with a 36 horsepower engine for $121,000. Three years later, fellow Hollywood star Ewan McGregor spent more than $30,000 to convert his Beetle to an all-electric version.
But in Mexico, it’s never hard to catch a glimpse of the curves and rear-engine growl that characterised the original car.
Jose Luis, who has been restoring Bochos for 40 years, said he felt “deep sadness” when the decision was made to discontinue the car. “Parts have become more expensive and much harder to obtain, but the desire of people to own and drive these cars in Mexico has not changed,” he said.
For world-renowned Mexican visual artist Betzaby Romero, cars have played a key role in her career. In her studio outside Mexico City, Romero sits next to one of five hollowed-out bocho shells that she will soon combine to create a bridge representing the migrant journey.
“Vocio is a symbol of our heritage, something we can all relate to,” she said. “Every car is a part of design history, unique and democratic… Many people may have a favorite building but not know the architect, or they may like a style of art but can’t say who made it or when. But that’s not the case with cars. We all have our favorites and each one has a story to tell about it.”
Modern automakers face the enormous challenge of creating a car that attracts a similar level of global attention, but it remains to be seen whether they can replicate the unparalleled cult status of the Volkswagen Beetle.
