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The Beetle is dead, long live socially inept car enthusiasts

Thousands of goaty-sporting car enthusiasts and spoilt rich daddy-daughters broke down this weekend when it was confirmed that car manufacturer Volkswagen would no longer produce the famous Beetle.

"This can't be true, my life is over, ruined," wailed Gisele, a 21-year-old attractive blonde whose father owns three houses. "I was going to get a red one this year to go with my new dress. I was going to drive it down the King's Road with the new Air album blasting out. Oh God, the whole summer is ruined and it's all Volkswagen's fault."

However, a VW spokesman confirmed that the decision was not taken to upset Gisele but on the harsh economic reality that hardly anyone wanted a new Beetle, and even fewer were willing to pay for it. "We only produce them in Mexico now," he told us, "and we are down to 30,000 units a year — it's just not viable." He told us that the company had considered targeting the daddy-daughter market but felt competition was too tough in a niche market for it to be worthwhile.

"So, in the end, we decide to shut the factory down and concentrate instead on cars that have the engine in the front of the car and depend on reliability, comfort and quality for sales, rather than pseudo-coolness."

VW enthusiasts, meeting this weekend at the VW Cool Wheels Dude Man 2003 show in Devon were furious. "This is just the sort of short-sighted decision that shows how wrong the world has gone man," said social misfit Alan. "It's just disgusting that they could turn their backs on the hugely loyal VW following like this."

Others were equally fervent. "No balls, that's the problem," said goatee-wearing divorcé and 48-year-old father-of-two who should know better by now John Redding. "Did you know it was Adolf Hitler that first asked Ferdinand Porsche in the 1930s to build a car for the people. And he built the Beetle — one of the finest cars ever produced. Now don't mind me while I talk endlessly about every single tedious aspect of the car's suspension and shout to be heard over the grossly inefficient engine because I've not got much more in my life."

Rumours abound that VW will also not produce replacement parts for the hundreds of thousands of Beetles clambering around the countryside in various states of disrepair. The spokesman appeared to confirm the worst. "Oh don't start on the bloody Beetle lot again. Look, we've made 21 million Beetles in total since they first hit the production lines. We estimate that 18 million of them are now scrap. Of those three million, two million are rusting in the back garden waiting for the owner to do it up.

"Of the remaining one million, just over half are owned by students. And the remainder are owned by these bleedin fanatics that love nothing more than going and looking at other people's Beetles, talking about Beetles, laughing about Beetles and then writing us hundreds of letters about this and that like we actually give a shi*t."

The problem, he explains, is that "out of all those 21 million Beetles, we estimate we make each year $8,000 in new sales as all they do is fix it up and then expect us to give them a medal or something. We once worked out how much it costs us in terms of taking phonecalls, answering pedantic letters, and turning down requests for parts and special appearances at shows and it turned out the Beetle is costing us $1.2 million a year. At that rate, it would be cheaper for us to hire professional assassins and take every one of the bastards out."

However, news of the Beetle's demise has hit those less emotionally attached to the car. Top motoring journalist Jack MacBurn told us he was sorry to see it go: "There's still something rather special about driving a Beetle," he told us. "It takes you back to simpler days when cars were horribly loud, couldn't get up hills, were always crowded and hot and didn't manage to get very far without breaking down. The motoring world has certainly lost a character — sort of like the local tramp in the bus shelter."

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