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Meet The New Beetle; Same (Or Close?) As The Old Beetle

The 2012 Volkswagen Beetle.
Jamie McCarthy
/
Getty Images
The 2012 Volkswagen Beetle.

Volkswagen is going after male buyers with its new, supposedly more masculine Beetle, NPR's Sonari Glinton reported on Morning Edition.

That's what The Detroit News says too. It writes that VW is "aiming to shed the 'chick car' label," by getting rid of the flower vase that adorned the dash of recent Beetles and giving the car a "more muscular, sportier" look overall.

And according to The New York Times' Wheels blog, the Bug now comes "with a rampaging Y chromosome."

We're also struck, though, by what to our eye seems to be the "new" Beetle's resemblance to the "old" Beetle. Doesn't it more closely resemble the "classic" Bug than the recent models did?

A classic VW Beetle. (1975 file photo.)
Keystone / Getty Images
/
Getty Images
A classic VW Beetle. (1975 file photo.)
A circa 2005 VW Beetle.
Andrew Cutraro / AFP/Getty Images
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AFP/Getty Images
A circa 2005 VW Beetle.
The 2012 VW Beetle.
Jamie McCarthy / Getty Images
/
Getty Images
The 2012 VW Beetle.

And now, we wonder:

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Mark Memmott is NPR's supervising senior editor for Standards & Practices. In that role, he's a resource for NPR's journalists – helping them raise the right questions as they do their work and uphold the organization's standards.
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