New Retro Bus?

Not daft, seen the concept of it, very similar to the new beetle in concept.

Sneaks

"Mike Rocket J. Squirrel Elliott" wrote

i like it personally.. just like, I like the new beetle except all the yuppies that have them..thats another story in itself.. new cars have new designs.. if they went back to the old what would be the point?

Jeremie

It's VW which is daft, not your stepson (if this was his sole exhibition of apparent daft-ness). The last time I checked their info about the thing, they considering matching surfboards...

What was the point in producing the old beetle virtually unchanged for 6 decades?

WE WANTED IT THAT WAY ;)

Jan

Barf, I just looked at the pictures and quite frankly I thought it was far short of the mark. They need to use more styling cues from the pre-'67 T2 in my humble opinion. Where's the belt-line trim converging in a "V" up front? Where are the round headlights? (could use/adapt the ones from the NB)... I'm not the only one that thinks this as there are other like-minded individuals that've "Photoshopped" that very thing. Where, where, where... do I need to continue? Just look at Ford's '05 Mustang for the way to freshen up a design and bring it into the new millenium. Of course maybe I'M daft and everyone likes this design, I'd be willing to bet they don't. :o)

I wonder if many of the Yuppies that bought New Beetles when they were trendy are going back to the Volkswagen dealership after their lease is up.

Bill Berckman Cincinnati VW/Porsche Family Reunion Show 2003 Pictures

The Retro bus has been slated for production in Hanover, Germany. It will reach North America in the Spring of 2005. The Eurovan, which is a direct decendant of the original bus was dropped in North America, because it just couldn't compete....the new Microbus is very cool, and will be much more true to the original than what you might think....

I forgot to mention what I considered most outrageous - the suggested price. I seem to recall that it was very high - although again I haven't looked into it in a couple of years and, over my current dial-up connection, haven't time to check it out at the moment.

If they BOUGHT New Beetles and their lease runs out then they need to sue for fraud or some such. ;)

Fully optioned, it would be in the neighbourhood of $35,000...base models would be in the mid to high $20s....In Europe, VW Markets a really nice minivan called the Sharan.....if you go to any european VW site, have a look at it....really sucks that it isn't sold in North America...

- Pete

The Sharan is identical to Ford Galaxie (Galaxy?) and Seat Alhambra, they are just badged differently. VW and Seat of course are part of the same corporation, but Ford was in teh design team too. Parts interchange, except certain trim items which are used to differentiate them.

And no, they are not good cars. Average at most. Noisy, rough sounding engines, plastic feel in the interior, etc.. If the price was low enough, they'd probably serve their purpose well enough despite all that.

Jan

......................Thanks for setting the record straight Jan. When those those retro-buses hit the show rooms, the hype is going to be horrific until the cheerleading subsides and reality sets in. In two or three years, they'll start showing up in the used car lots in large numbers just like what's been happening with the new beetle.