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Consumer Reports


Bitten fans bemoan loss of their beloved 'Bug'

http://www.jewishworldreview.com | (KRT) SAN JUAN DEL RIO, Mexico - The fans of the Volkswagen Beetle who gather annually in this central Mexico city do not want to believe that the car of their dreams is coming to the end of the line. Yet by summer's end, production of the oft-revered and sometimes reviled vehicle will cease at its last assembly plant, in Mexico.

After a run of seven decades and more than 21 million cars, the rear-engine Beetle will go the way of the Ford Model T, the automotive granddaddy that the "Bug" supplanted as the world's most popular passenger vehicle.

"This car can last 10 years longer than the new cars," said Yasep Neito, 43, who like most Mexicans calls the vehicles vochos, which is a play on Volkswagen. "In a vocho, you can do everything - from trying to make a child to taking care of business deals. And yes, I have done both."

In Mexico, aficionados in 80 clubs nationwide hold weekend festivals, such as the gathering last month in San Juan del Rio in the central state of Queretaro, about 100 miles northwest of Mexico City. Some of the 2,000 participants drove up to 13 hours from distant cities such as Monterrey.

The event drew 245 showcase cars, about a third of them the classic Beetle. For three blocks, enthusiasts polished fancy decals and paint jobs, blasted overpowered stereos, bought and sold parts, and feasted on carne asada, grilled skirt steak.

The vocheros, as Bug owners call themselves, mourned the car's impending end. And they swapped vocho stories.

Among the most popular tales this time of year, which is the rainy season, are the claims of how the Beetles float through flooded streets while other cars stall.

"They are hermetically airtight," said Marcos Bureau, 35, editor of Vochomania in Mexico City, a twice-a-month magazine with a 45,000 circulation devoted to vochos dated 1992 and earlier.

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Designed as "the people's car" in 1934 under Adolf Hitler and first mass-produced in Germany in 1945 after his defeat, the vehicle was popular for its low price, easy maintenance and sure-start reliability.

Though critics disdain its noisy, bumpy ride, Beetle fans praise its resilience and reliability, thanks in part to an air-cooled engine, designed by engineer Ferdinand Porsche, that is simple and durable.

"We are vocheros, down to our heart," said Adalberto Ortiz, 29, of Queretaro City, who owns two restored Beetles built in 1964 and 1976. "I would buy nothing but a vocho. Vochos are part of our lives."

But the VW standby - a symbol of U.S. counterculture in the 1960s - has lost planetary popularity as tastes, markets and government emissions and safety rules changed, and similar cars offered more for the money.

"I'm really sad," said Eduardo Lopez, 39, a body shop mechanic whose wife and four children gathered around a 1973 Beetle that he and his two sons modified into a roadster. "It's hard to say goodbye. You see vochos everywhere. I don't think it will be gone forever."

Added his 19-year-old son, Eduardo II, who also works in the shop: "Right now it's like a rumor. Maybe it's going to happen and maybe it's not.

"I guess it's a shame that it's vanishing. We live for the vocho and modifying it. It's a Mexican passion," he said.

Still, the "Bug jam" near Paso de los Guzman Park also showed why the little Herbies, as the car was anthropomorphized in the 1969 Disney movie "The Love Bug," have lost appeal.

Many of the assembled cars were other VW models such as the Jetta, Golf and Pointer. Some were outright heretical but still grudgingly accepted - Chevy subcompacts, which cost almost the same as the Bug and offer more room and features.

"These are two generations," explained Alejandro Ruiz, 32, a cellular phone service merchant from Mexico City who showed off trunk woofers the size of small cannons in his red 2001 Jetta.

"I don't prefer the classics. They are too old for me," he noted. "There's a lot of competition, but the Volkswagen isn't losing its influence in the Mexican culture."

Planned layoffs of 2,000 of 14,000 VW workers at the plant just outside Puebla may indicate otherwise. Union workers on July 4, however, proposed salary cuts of 20 percent and a reduction in hours in exchange for no layoffs.

The factory, which is 73 miles east of Mexico City, will cut production 23 percent because of declining sales of the Jetta and the new Beetle in foreign markets.

The Beetle's latest reincarnation, introduced in 2001, is a privileged cousin to the original but isn't considered a direct descendant, plant officials said. Made only in Mexico and exported to 80 countries, the vehicle has a more streamlined dome, uses a different frame and has a water-cooled engine in the front.

"Technically, it's a Golf, but it's reminiscent of the old Beetle," said Thomas Karig, a Volkswagen vice president.

At the 741-acre Puebla complex, with impeccably clean shops featuring extensive robotics and icons of Mexico's patron saint, the Virgin of Guadalupe, Karig said the original Beetle's fortunes changed after Mexico opened its markets under the 1994 North America Free Trade Agreement and later accords with Europe, Brazil and Argentina. Volkswagen lost its captive clientele.

The Puebla plant built 100,000 Bugs in 1993, its best year ever, or 400 cars a day. Today, it builds 53 vehicles a day, Karig said.

For just $700 more than the $6,500 classic Beetle, a motorist can buy a VW Pointer, which offers twice as much horsepower for negotiating Mexico City's mountains.

Overall, Karig said, the old Beetle's production outnumbers the Ford Model T, if consistent body style is considered: 21.5 million vs. 15.7 million. The Mexico plant made 1.7 million of the Bugs.

The car has had its share of problems, though.

While the engine is regarded as easy to repair, it was eventually deemed a polluter under tougher environmental standards, and U.S. safety and emission standards stopped its sale in the late 1970s.

Recently in Mexico City, where 80 percent of the city's 100,000 shamrock-green-and-white cabs are original Beetles, the government is requiring new taxis to have four doors for safety and convenience.

As the lovable little Bug nears its end, Volkswagen is preparing a special edition, 2,000 in all, to go on sale July 10.

The car will offer different colors, chrome moldings and designs harking to its heyday, Karig said. Parts will be made for 10 more years, he said.

"It's a wonder that this car sustained itself so long," Karig said. "We knew this day would come. In the end, it becomes a business decision."

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