New Cars 2012: VW Beetle

In 1994, Volkswagen debuted its retrocool Concept 1 to much fanfare. After just three short calendar years, the car was headed to production as a the Volkswagen "VW New Beetle". Unlike the cult classic that bore its namesake, this new compact car bore a traditional F/F drivetrain, whereas the original piece was built on a rear engine, rear-drive platform. Also, unlike the cult classic, Volkswagen knew they could make a huge profit on this car based on image alone. During the late 1990s, and early 2000s, the retro boom was really beginning to take off, and the introduction of the New Beetle brought "retro-cool" to the masses. Sure, you had the legendary Porsche 993 available as a used car, but that wasn't exactly affordable.
Shortly after the New Beetle was launched, Chrysler saw need to jump into the fray with its own little hatchback, and like the Beetle, their PT Cruiser worked. All good trends must come to an end, right? Well.. the PT Cruiser died a slow and agonizing death; it was put out to pasture nearly ten years too late, as far as I'm concerned. The Volkswagen Beetle along with its convertible stablemate, however, have remained a staple in VW's North American lineup since it's original introduction nearly twenty years ago. With the arrival of the hardtop Beetle, one can only hope that the convertible is right around the corner. After all, despite the hardtop having "male variants" (ala Turbo), VW suspects that convertible is the primary choice of female buyers, and based on what I've seen locally, they may be right.
Would I spend my dollars on a Beetle? It's hard to say. I have grown to almost despise the first generation New Beetle, but I quite like the second generation; I bet its the rake roofline that does it for me, or maybe its the Porsche-esque wheels on the Turbo model. Not quite sure what it is, but I definitely approve of the new car's styling. What I am a little concerned about, though, is supposed reliability. I do realize VW has certainly made strides in their efforts of build quality, I'm not sure if they've made the cars actually better or they've simply tailored them to the American market-- aka made them cheap by cutting costs. We'll see just exactly how it stands up to real life when I start seeing more of them around.