Styling, of course, is a key one.
"People buy it for fashion," says industry analyst Jesse Toprak at TrueCar.com, a consumer car-pricing and research site. The mileage, he says, "is good enough for the Beetle."
A bigger challenge, Toprak says, is selling the Beetle to men:
TrueCar.com data show women were registered owners of 60.6% of New Beetles sold in 2010 and 56.1% in 2009. "It is the most female-oriented car on the market," he says. Nissan Rogue was second both years, at 56.3% and 53.5% female owners.
VW says it expects the 2012's styling to draw more men. But Toprak says a version exhibited at the New York auto show in April "still looked 'girly' to me."
Industry experience has been that women will buy cars that appeal to men, but men won't buy cars identified mainly with women. That cuts the pool of potential buyers. VW's ambitious plan to triple sales in the U.S. envisions bigger, not smaller, pools of buyers for each new model.
Beetle, once a unique retro-car, now must compete with the similarly conceived but costlier BMW's Mini Cooper ($20,100 to start) and Chrysler Group's new and cheaper Fiat 500 ($16,000 base). All evoke icons of their brands' past.
Read Article