When I was a little boy, I had a black Volkswagen Beetle toy. It was made by Tonka in the days when model cars and trucks were made of pressed steel instead of injection-molded plastic, and that big black Bug was one of my favorites. It disappeared for good sometime after my family moved to a Chicago suburb in 1971, no doubt stolen by the bratty scoundrel down the street who coveted the car from the day we arrived on Beverly Circle Drive West. Jerk.
You’ll understand, then, why I so thoroughly enjoyed a week driving the black 2012 Volkswagen Beetle in the photo above. Part of the reason was that it reminded me of my beloved Tonka Beetle, but this black Bug also erased the emasculating after-effects of too much time spent with a certain Lemon Yellow 1998 New Beetle TDI back when the modern VW Bug made its ballyhooed return to showrooms.
The year was 1997, and I worked for Edmunds.com from a home-office in Denver. We bought one of the first 1998 New Beetle TDIs to arrive in Colorado to serve as a long-term test car, and we let a female member of our staff, affectionately nicknamed “Spork” for reasons that escape me today, pick the color. She chose yellow. And then she put a daisy in the standard dashboard bud vase. That car attracted a ton of attention, and those times that I forgot to hide the daisy and bud vase in the glovebox, generated an equal amount of embarrassment. After spending months behind the wheel, and driving the TDI to Los Angeles and foisting it off on the Edmunds home team in Beverly Hills, I just could not bring myself to drive another New Beetle until the dandy Turbo S made its debut.
The Beetle Mans Up. Kinda.
Volkswagen knew that after the original excitement for the New Beetle wore off, the car sold mostly to women. So when it decided to keep the Beetle in the lineup and redesign the car, it flattened the New Beetle’s signature roundy-round styling elements, ditched the dashboard bud vase, and in Turbo format, slid a GTI under the new bodywork to give the car legitimate performance credentials. The result is the car you see here, which, especially painted black with “Turbo” graphics, looks manly enough that guys won’t feel utterly shriveled while driving it.
At least I didn’t. But then my doc says I suffer from Low T. That might explain the four daughters I’ve produced since spending way too much quality time in that Lemon Yellow New Beetle. Hmmm. Maybe there’s an opportunity here for my lawyer.
In any case, the 2012 Volkswagen Beetle Turbo is what you buy if you want a GTI or Jetta GLI but seek a transportation solution that exudes personality and attracts attention. Everywhere I went in this car, people noticed it. The checkered side graphics and machined-finished wheel spokes help in this regard, but there’s more to it than that. Bystanders realize that while the car looks familiar, there’s something different about it. Something flatter and wider about it. And the response is generally positive. That’s what I tell myself, anyway.
Review Focus: 2012 Volkswagen Beetle Turbo
Let’s dig into the specifics. The 2012 Beetle is new, but it’s no longer “New.” Now it’s just the VW Beetle. Vehix editors Michael Waterman and Thom Blackett have each spent quality time behind the wheel of the Beetle with the standard 2.5-liter inline five-cylinder engine, so the focus of this review is the turbocharged model.
Same Engine as GTI
Same as the VW GTI and GLI, the Beetle Turbo has Volkswagen’s turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder stuffed under its stubby hood, making 200 horsepower between 5,100 and 6,000 rpm and, more importantly, 207 pound-feet of torque spread across a wide rev range from 1,700 to 5,000 rpm. A six-speed manual gearbox is standard, but our test car came equipped with the optional Direct Shift Gearbox (DSG), an automated six-speed manual that delivers peppy performance and delightful rev-matched downshift burps from the burbling turbo four.
Translated, the Beetle Turbo’s broad power peaks mean the car delivers surprisingly strong and surprisingly steady acceleration from almost any speed. Volkswagen says the Beetle Turbo hits 60 mph in 6.8 seconds, and we had so much fun stabbing this black Beetle’s brushed-aluminum go-pedal that we averaged just 21.8 mpg during a week of mixed driving. That’s lower than the EPA’s 25-mpg combined estimate, but not terrible considering how energetically we exercised the car. And have I mentioned how the exhaust note is tuned to quietly mimic the air-cooled flat-four from the original Bug? Perhaps it’s my imagination dredging the memory banks of Beetles past, but our test sample’s cabin contained a hint of grumble and rumble coming from the back of the car.
What Else Makes the Beetle Turbo Special?
Other Beetle Turbo upgrades include a sport-tuned suspension that includes replacement of the standard Beetle’s torsion-beam rear end for an independent multi-link design, electric sport-calibrated steering, bigger brakes with red-painted calipers, and styling modifications: fog lights, rear spoiler, 18-inch “Twister” design wheels, and unique trim detailing inside and out. Sport seats wrapped in fabric are installed for the driver and front passenger, and leather is wrapped around the shifter and parking brake handle.
The Beetle Turbo is also equipped with Volkswagen’s Cross Differential System (XDS), essentially a limited-slip differential that automatically transfers power from one front wheel to the other if slippage is detected. Where I live in Southern California, this comes in handy during the occasional rainstorm, but the real benefit is evident when driving hard down a favorite twisty mountain road. With front-wheel-drive, the Beetle Turbo would be prone to spinning its front inside wheel and activating the traction control system as the driver powered out of a corner, but with XDS the turbocharged Beetle blasts away from a curve with authority.
The Blown Bug is Fun, But Not Quite Thrilling
While I enjoyed driving the entertaining Beetle Turbo, and the car exhibits greater handling capability than Vehix evaluators have found in the standard model, it is nevertheless clear that there’s room in the lineup for the even more performance-oriented Beetle Turbo R, which is expected to arrive in 2013.
The Beetle Turbo is quick, but not quite fast. It is connected, but not tenaciously so. There’s subtle heaviness to the ride, lightness to the steering, softness to the suspension and monotony to acceleration that makes the Beetle Turbo a comfortable daily driver if not an outright speed machine.
This bothered my wife, fellow Vehix contributor Liz Kim, but not me. Having covered L.A. County’s version of the Nurburgring in the Beetle Turbo, I know the car exhibits a bit of a split personality. Around town and on the highway, where she drove it, the Beetle is fairly docile. Throw some twisty road under the car, and the Beetle Turbo proves rewardingly nimble and eager.
Significant Interior Upgrades
The new Beetle is a great place to sit, too, as long as you snag one of the front chairs. The sport seats are supportive without squeezing wider backsides, and offer a wide range of adjustment so that anyone can get comfortable in them. The driver faces a flat-bottomed steering wheel with an unusually thin rim, which is perhaps a nod to the smaller hands and fingers of female drivers. The gauges and dashboard retain a retro flavoring complete with body color-matched panels and what Volkswagen calls a “heritage-inspired Kaferfach glovebox.”
As for the two-person rear seat, I have a confession to make. I forgot to squeeze myself back there to test comfort. I know. How unprofessional. But I can tell you this much. My family used the Beetle all week long without much complaint aside from loading kids into car seats through the front doors. In fact, this black Bug is the first car my youngest daughter ever rode in while facing forward. Better yet, the Beetle’s 15.4 cubic-foot trunk was able to hold our small stroller. You won’t necessarily want to use this Volkswagen as your primary family hauler, but it can be done, unlike with a Fiat 500. And if you leave the kids at home (or don’t have ‘em in the first place) you’ve got 29.9 cu-ft of cargo space at your disposal with the rear seats folded down.
Generally speaking, the new Beetle’s interior design, control layout, and materials are also a huge improvement over the old New Beetle’s. I do miss the center console armrest design that used to be installed in recent Volkswagens, the one that ratcheted up to accommodate driver’s of various sizes and seating positions, and the body-color plastic covering the upper door panels is pretty unfriendly to elbows, but the Beetle is nevertheless comfortable, easy to drive, and possessed of quality bits and pieces for the price point.
The Vehix View
In terms of exterior styling, interior design, and even the engine note, the new Volkswagen Beetle continues to appeal to Americans who possess fond memories of the original Bug. It’s like someone performed a retro-mod restoration on a classic Vee Dub, in which modern mechanicals and technology are tucked into an older machine. Of course, that’s not even close to actually being the case. The engine is installed at the wrong end of the car, for starters. But you get the idea. As one of those Americans with happy memories – of that little black Tonka, of my father’s 1974 Sun Bug, and of truly awful Beetles driven by high-school buddies in the 1980s – the redesigned 2012 Beetle pulls all the right heartstrings. And in Beetle Turbo format, it’s even something a guy can drive without risking his Man Card.
2012 Volkswagen Beetle Turbo Photos Copyright 2011 Christian Wardlaw
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