End of the road: Volkswagen will stop making iconic Beetle
Volkswagen has announced it is to stop making its iconic Beetle car next year, ending nearly seven decades of production.
The American branch of the international car manufacturer has said that the Mexican manufacturing plant that makes the iconic vehicle will cease production of the Beetle in 2019.
Two special editions of the car will be released next year to honour its legacy. The Beetle remains the best-selling car of all time, but numbers have flagged in recent years as people have shifted to more spacious family vehicles.
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The Beetle remains the best-selling vehicle of all time (Source: Getty)
“The loss of the Beetle after three generations, over nearly seven decades, will evoke a host of emotions from the Beetle’s many devoted fans,” said Hinrich Woebcken, president and chief executive officer of Volkswagen Group of America.
The car is seen as one of the most influential designs of the 20th century.
It was first commissioned by Adolf Hitler in 1933 but became a mainstay of the 1960s consumer market and post-war hippie culture.
It also featured as a talking car called Herbie the Love Bug in a series of Disney films made across four decades. The car suffered a decline in popularity in later years as its utilitarian design drifted out of fashion before it enjoyed a highly successful revamp in the 1990s.
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Volkswagen has also suffered a series of setbacks from the so-called Dieselgate scandal, paying a $4.3bn (£3.28bn) penalty after pleading guilty in the US for its role in deceiving regulators over the emissions levels of their vehicles.
Investors are now pursuing an £8.2bn court case against Volkswagen, which they accuse of misleading the market over the levels of diesel emissions from its cars.
This move is part of a strategy to focus the brand on a narrower ranger of cars and to embrace future opportunities in electrification.