The Lost Bug The old VW Beetle won the hearts of Americans

THE new Volkswagen Beetle symbolizes many things, including our continued romance with all things Baby Boomer. The Bug is the car in which Boomers were raised; it provided the transportation during the Summer of Love. But the differences between the Volkswagen of the Nineties and the beloved Beetle of the Sixties provide a disconcerting illustration of how America has changed in thirty years.

The new Beetle offered by Volkswagenwerk, AG, is an “economy” car with an estimated retail sticker price of $16,500 (about $20,000 for a well-equipped model)—more than half the average American family’s gross pre-tax annual income. By contrast, before it was cashiered from the U.S. market in the late 1970s, the old Beetle had a selling price of around $3,000, less than one-fourth the average family income of that era. For that reasonable sum, buyers got a durable little commuter car built around an ingenious, if primitive, air-cooled engine that needed no radiator, and hence no antifreeze, and no hoses—just one fan belt. It was so simple that a torpid hippie could change the four spark plugs and adjust the points himself for less than $15.

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Eric Peters

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THE new Volkswagen Beetle symbolizes many things, including our continued romance with all things Baby Boomer. The Bug is the car in which Boomers were raised; it provided the transportation during the Summer of Love. But the differences between the Volkswagen of the Nineties and the beloved Beetle of the Sixties provide a disconcerting illustration of how America has changed in thirty years.

The new Beetle offered by Volkswagenwerk, AG, is an “economy” car with an estimated retail sticker price of $16,500 (about $20,000 for a well-equipped model)—more than half the average American family’s gross pre-tax annual income. By contrast, before it was cashiered from the U.S. market in the late 1970s, the old Beetle had a selling price of around $3,000, less than one-fourth the average family income of that era. For that reasonable sum, buyers got a durable little commuter car built around an ingenious, if primitive, air-cooled engine that needed no radiator, and hence no antifreeze, and no hoses—just one fan belt. It was so simple that a torpid hippie could change the four spark plugs and adjust the points himself for less than $15.