Last VW Beetle Rolled Off the Assembly Line, but Many Other 2-Door Coupes Available

Bug. Kafer. Coccinelle. Beetle. And later, Super beetle. It goes by many names, and is a vehicle loved by millions around the world. Born under the leader of Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler, the Volkswagen Type 1 Beetle was designed by famed auto engineer Ferdinand Porsche and his team. It was manufactured and marketed by German automaker Volkswagen (VW) from 1938 until 2003. By the time production ended for the Type 1,  21,529,464 had been produced, and that crowned the Beetle as the longest-running and most-manufactured car of a single platform ever made.

The Beetle brand was resurrected by Volkswagon (people's car) two more times due to popular demand. Aside from the same name and similar basic bubble shape, the Volkswagen New Beetle (1997-2010) & Volkswagen Beetle A5 (2011-2019) shared little in common with the old 'Bug'.

The final Volkswagen Beetle ever made, a Denim Blue coupe, was built on July 9th in Puebla, Mexico, and will go on display at VW's museum in Puebla. Perhaps the Execs at VW feared the Leftist vengence mobs would eventually connect the history dots and smear them as 'Hitler.' 

From Andrew Wendler at Car & Driver:

"Although the air-cooled Beetle disappeared from the U.S. market in the late 1970s for a multitude of reasons, it seemed at the time that a new Beetle was inevitable; we just didn't think it would take until 1998 to get one. After several years of rumors and teasers, the New Beetle arrived just as an entire generation of buyers of growing affluence realized they were suffering from a debilitating case of nostalgia. Anxious to identify with the cultural touchstones of the past, they flocked to the New Beetle, which provided all the warm and fuzzy memories without triggering the nightmares inherent of its ancestor, a vehicle powered by a 40-hp 1.2-liter engine that could barely maintain 60 mph on an incline.

When it came, the New Beetle was dramatically improved in nearly every metric: ride; comfort; noise, vibration, and harshness; and reliability—well, for Volkswagen of the late '90s, anyhow—and modern conveniences such as air conditioning and an automatic transmission. But those who stuck around long enough to get past the cute factor discovered that for the period, the New Beetle was a pretty darn good car, too. Did anyone care that the water-cooled engine was in the front? Maybe, but progress has a cost, and if the car could be made safer and more practical to produce, only the most hard-core devotes seemed disappointed."

Bye-bye, Beetle. You're gone, but not forgotten, nor the only compact, colorful coupe on the showroom floor. Matthew DeBord at Business Insider has a pretty good list of affordable 2-door coupes for under $35,000.