Show cars have one big advantage. If no one expects them to be produced, their designers don’t have to worry about every technical detail.
When Volkswagen stylists at Simi Valley, Calif., developed a concept vehicle in the early ’90s, they didn’t have to fret about fitting their creation onto a specific platform.
Sure, company executives wanted to have a brilliant concept car to reveal at the Detroit Auto Show. But that didn’t mean the stylists and engineers would have to be fettered by measurements and compatibility problems.
Once in a while, though, show-car creators are in for a surprise. A concept vehicle draws such enthusiastic response that ardent cries for production are heard.
Those cries began almost immediately after the bright yellow Concept 1 was unveiled in a puff of smoke with haunting music in January 1994. Journalists and industry leaders attending the Detroit Auto Show had seldom seen such overwhelmingly favorable reaction to a concept car–or any car–by the press and public. Producing instant recollections of the Beetle, the Concept 1 looked futuristic and old-fashioned at the same time.
The car had been created in California by youthful designers–some of them barely old enough to recall the original Beetle. “It’s something that’s definitely been thought of for years and years at the studios. . . . It didn’t start as this project, but it evolved into what we see now,” said one at the Detroit show.
Research/development chief Ulrich Seiffert added that “we want to return to our roots” though “we will never bring the Beetle back.”
Months later, when corporate leaders at Volkswagen considered turning the Concept 1 into reality, they faced a problem. The car at Detroit had been designed as a showcase for three possible powertrains but with minimal thought to what lay beneath the skin. If such a car were to approach production, it would have to sit on a platform–the basic structure beneath the body–that would allow it to be made for a marketable price.
Though Concept 1 had been “conceived as a functioning car,” says Rudiger Folten, Volkswagen’s head of strategic design, “the platform strategy had been largely left out of the equation.”
Volkswagen and its upscale Audi division opened their Simi Valley design studio in January 1991 to improve VW’s position in North America. The studio was supposed to develop closer links with the American market and to intensively study trends, many of which start in California.
Volkswagen sales in the U.S. were approaching a low point in 1993, when it sold only 49,000. Its best year in the U.S. was 1970, with total sales (including vans) of 569,696. Beetles peaked in 1968, with 423,008 sold in the U.S. (including Karmann Ghias). Sales totaled 569,292 that year.
Something dramatic was needed to revitalize the name. Preliminary work on a design study began in May 1992, but it wasn’t Beetle-like. All the creators sought was a concept that could employ alternative propulsion systems.
Before long, planners discovered how enduring the Beetle was. They quickly realized, Folten notes, “that in the United States the Beetle legend was far from being over.” The “unmistakable shape of the car still had a strong appeal to people and evoked very strong passion about the brand.”
Pondering the lasting appeal of the unmistakable Beetle profile, they began to wonder whether the legend might be revived.
Early in 1993, a small group of designers began work on Concept 1. Folten gives most of the design credit to Freeman Thomas in California, along with Peter Schreyer and Design Studio chief J. Mays. Schreyer is now head of design for Audi, while Mays moved to Ford Motor Co. “These three very talented guys had the idea and shanked it out,” Folten recalls.
By May 1993, two models were ready in 1:4 scale. A light green version was more rounded, closely related to the original Beetle. The yellow model had what Folten calls “tauter lines and a more consistently modern design.”
Though he was in charge of design strategy, Folten was not directly involved with development at Simi Valley. His job involved “thinking about what design could be in the future, doing some discussions with designers, looking for some trends.” Folten joined the team in mid-1993, “to take the idea from the United States to Germany.”
Hartmut Warkuss, who initiated the Concept 1 project, took the models to corporate headquarters in Wolfsburg. There, he convinced Ferdinand Piech, Volkswagen AG chairman, that a full-scale car should be built. They decided to build one for the 1994 Detroit show. This would be big enough for people to sit in, and perhaps recall an original Beetle. The yellow model–the more modern variant–got the nod.
“Under a cloak of secrecy, which excluded even many Volkswagen staff, the model was built,” Folten says.
The Californians finished the first full-size model in July 1993. At that time, Folten says, nobody expected to produce the car.
No one even imagined the level of excitement generated when the car first appeared.
Two months after the Detroit debut, a red convertible was exhibited at the Geneva Motor Show. Here too, Piech first declared that the “Concept 1 would not necessarily have to remain a concept car.”
Once the decision to produce was made, engineers recognized how difficult it would be to get a car shaped like the Concept 1 onto an existing platform. Without extensively using current components, Folten explains, “the car would not be able to be produced for a reasonable price.”
They chose the A4 platform, used by the popular Golf.
Designers in Germany wanted to make “as few changes as possible to the shape of the Concept 1,” Folten says. “However, new bumpers, enlarged air vents and a new roof contour made comprehensive redesigning necessary.” In addition to finding ways to meet U.S. legislation, especially bumper guidelines, the design had to be stretched to fit the new platform.
They had to lengthen the overhangs front and rear and the body. “Those overhangs have to come together with the semicircular roof, and you can’t stretch it, because the tension goes away. So we had to put here a little bit (of clay), and there a little bit, and scratch it away.” Over and over, the car’s basic shape was “reworked so as to retain the character and charm of Concept 1.”
Selecting a production site was easier. The car would be built at Puebla, Mexico, where Golfs were produced, because VW expected to sell about 70 percent of New Beetles in the U.S.
In October 1995, a design study virtually ready for production using the New Beetle name turned up at the Tokyo Motor Show. This one helped dispel skepticism. Since Detroit, journalists had speculated that the real thing would be so toned down it would bear little resemblance to the Concept 1, a common occurrence when concepts are produced.
Another design, this time with a sliding glass sunroof and pearlescent green paint, appeared at Geneva in March 1996. Finally, in January 1998, the production car debuted in Detroit.
The Beetle follows its predecessor’s shape in several key areas. Its arched roof slopes steeply toward the rear and meets a rounded front hood over the engine. Four nearly semicircular fenders curve sharply outward from the body, lending a symmetrical appearance when viewed from front or rear. Round headlights sit flush in front fenders, and there’s a hint of a running board below each door.
Several formal elements, however, move the design into the present–and future. Wherever possible, rounded forms take are circular or spherical. Smooth surfaces have remained smooth, “deriving their subtle charm solely from their generous curves.” Tension, a favorite tool of stylists, is evident between the simplicity of the smooth surfaces and the few straight lines on the car.
The arched roof also provides a basis for the abstract, stylized depiction of the profile that’s used in the New Beetle logo–as unmistakably Volkswagen as the shape was in the ’50s and ’60s.
The instrument panel is symmetrical and straightforward. The driver faces a single large, circular display. The passenger faces a huge dash-mounted grab handle, a feature absent from the old. Also on the dashboard is a little vase, once a popular accessory.
Windshield placement turned out to be one of the biggest differences between the Beetles. In the modern design, the windshield sits far forward; in the original, the flat windshield glass was inches from the driver’s eyes.
“We had some problems with the cowl,” Folten says, “because on the A4 platform, the firewall sits underneath the cowl section. The firewall and the dashboard were (farther) behind than we needed it for the New Beetle. But we couldn’t change the firewall, because it is part of the platform. And so we only have changed the cowl section and the area of the windshield and wipers.”
Only some parts, including the wheelhouses at the front, were modified to fit the platform shape. “When you see the Golf,” Folten says, its “hood goes straight forward. The New Beetle has a hood going around, falling down. And that means we had to cut a little bit from the inner wheelhouses. The platform is not dogma. . . . You can change a little bit.”
“Unlike so many other automobiles making the journey from design study to series production,” Folten concludes, “the New Beetle’s alterations did nothing to lessen its original appeal.”
THE TIME OF THE BEETLE
Here’s how the New Beetle developed in capsule form:
– January 1991: Volkswagen/ Audi design studio opens in Simi Valley, Calif.
– May 1992: Work begins on design for concept car that can use an alternative propulsion system.
– September 1992: Planners realize that the Beetle legend remains strong, so they consider reviving it.
– May 1993: Hartmut Warkuss, who initiated the Concept 1 project, presents first scale models to Ferdinand Piech, chairman of Volkswagen AG. They order a full-scale model for the 1994 Detroit Auto Show, as a top-secret project.
– July 1993: First full-size model is finished.
– January 1994: Response to Concept 1 at Detroit Auto Show surpasses all expectations, and dealers soon for a production version.
– March 1994: As convertible version appears at Geneva Motor Show, Piech promises that Concept 1 need not remain a mere vision. Planners elect to put the New Beetle on the Golf (A4) platform.
– November 1994: Exterior and interior models go to Volkswagen Board of Management.
– October 1995: Vehicle named New Beetle appears at Tokyo Motor Show, in form virtually ready for production. Some 20,000 people place orders.
– November 1995: Design is finalized with approval of “data control” model.
– March 1996: Another version of New Beetle appears in Geneva with sliding glass roof. Volkswagen uses the Internet to help promote this presentation.
– January 1998: Production model premieres at Detroit show.
– Spring 1998: New Beetle goes on sale as 1998 model, with gasoline or TDI (diesel) engine. Early examples fetch prices well above sticker.
– Early 1999: Turbocharged engine available in ’99 New Beetle.
TAPE-MEASURE JOBS
Here’s how a 1955 Beetle, Concept 1 and New Beetle stack up:
1955 Beetle
– Wheelbase: 94.5 inches
– Length: About 160 inches
– Height: About 59 inches
– Width: 60.4 inches
Concept 1
– Wheelbase: 99.4 inches
– Length: About 150 inches
– Height: 59 inches
– Width: 64.4 inches
New Beetle
– Wheelbase: 98.9 inches
– Length: 161.1 inches
– Height: 59.5 inches
– Width: 67.9 inches
