Black Betty

2012 VW Beetle

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the all-new 2012 VW Beetle. All those Oprah fans who received a key to one last year, well done. This car looks much better than the horrid trash created years ago, and even before that. What's strange is that VW say the design of this car was based on the original ugly Beetle. I do see some of that, but more of that awesome Ragster Concept a couple years back with the longer roof line and the aggressive windshield. Anyway, on to the car now. It's longer and wider than the old trash they've created. It features some Golf and Scirocco stylings so it is best believed that the car may be using a Golf chassis. There are new headlights with LED Daytime running lamps. Around the back, you'll see that this car has definitely gone through a serious makeover as it features new taillamps, a new spoiler, and an aggressive pair of exhausts, one on each side of the bumper.

Rear View

Inside, you'll find seating for four and some new amenities such as leather seats, navigation, an adaptive stereo system; they've even put in some carbon fiber on the dash for some models to make it a bit more aggressive. Not to mention, I'm delighted to say that they've removed the ugly flower that was standard on that last old trash that they had. No one needed that thing. Even men who bought one felt unmanly with that ugly flower on the steering wheel. Anyway, as far as power goes, VW has promised four engines for the Beetle, with three of them possibly coming over here. First, there's a 1.2-liter 104 horsepower inline-4 engine. Moving on up, there's the 1.4-liter 148 horsepower i-4 engine, the 1.6-liter 104 horsepower Blue Motion turbodiesel engine, and, you'll be excited to here, a 2.0-liter 200 horsepower turbo-4 engine like in the Golf GTI. All engines will be mated with either a 6-speed manual or 6-speed DSG transmission. The spoiler comes only with the TSI models (147 horsepower - 200 horsepower). Prices have not been announced yet, but soon will be as this car is set arrive here this fall. But, before it does, you'll be able to see it in person at the Shanghai Motor Show and New York International Auto Show this week, so I'll have some live pictures of this car for you this weekend.