Beetle mania makes a comeback

The Beetle occupies a nostalgia niche for those of us who's first memories of childhood are men walking on the moon and fighting with one's siblings to fit in the funny little space behind the back seats of a Beetle.

For many, the Beetle was the first family car but, thanks to its iconic stature, occupies a place in the popular imagination that the Hillman Hunter would love to have.

From Disney's Herbie films, where the car's idiosyncratic and thoroughly engaging design delighted a generation of children, to the ubiquitous shots of psychedelic-clad Beetles that are synonymous with hippiedom, the car has colonised a corner of the popular imagination. And nowhere as much as in the US.

The country's love affair with the car is well documented. From the Chevrolet Corvette to the T-Bird to the Cadillac, each slice of society has a car to call its own.

To Americans, cars are more than lumps of metal (the Trabant) to get from A to B or executive class status symbols (Mercedes). They are totems of a time and place, evocative links to a more carefree past, usually that time between high school and the first redundancy, when everything seems possible.

The Beetle, for the baby boomers and nostalgics, is the king of all cars. It symbolises a hugely exciting time in US social history, the time of the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War protest, student unrest, flower power, and rock 'n' roll at its best.

The Beetle had it all, street cred, ground-breaking advertising campaigns and cross-class appeal, all underpinned by solid German engineering.

However, it was a culture clash between what the Germans wanted to do and what the US buying public wanted from them that was to be Volkswagen's undoing. That, and serious problems with quality control, eroded the vaunted reputation for reliability.

In the 1970s and 1980s that culture clash intensified. The company, long a trifle embarrassed by the association of the Beetle with Hitler's peoples car project, moved on. The Golf came into being as did the Polo, the Jetta and the Passat - battleflags in Volkswagen's march to victory in Europe.

However, in the US, the heart and soul of the Volkswagen brand was the Beetle. And all Volkswagen's efforts to supplant it failed. Volkswagen tried Americanising the car, which just angered the critics and the Japanese swooped in and whipped the small car market out from under one of the pioneers.

By the early 1990s Volkswagen was in shreds in the US. Sales had plummeted from 5 per cent of US market share to 0.5 per cent in 1993. And the Germans were sick of being asked by US journalists why they didn't bring back the Beetle, but instead of trumpeting the delights of their European veterans, Volkswagen took heed, went back to the drawing board and produced the New Beetle and the rest, as the man says, is a much improved bottom line.

Kiley has written an entertaining insight into one of the more interesting corners of the car industry. He is especially strong on the role that advertising plays in brand awareness and his adept handling of boardroom wranglings and office politics adds to the blend. Anyone expecting cutesy shots of Herbie will, thankfully, be disappointed.

comidheach@irish-times.ie