Yes, there will be a new Beetle... And it's not far away. They're the messages to Beetle fans and car company watchers alike, from Volkswagen Executive Vice President, Detlef Wittig.
It's now more than a decade since the Golf-based Beetle II was launched internationally. However, speaking at this week's Golf VI launch in Iceland, VW's worldwide sales boss confirmed the company was close to unveiling the new Beetle.
"We won't show it at the Paris motor show, but at one of the future Paris motor shows we will show the new Beetle," Wittig told the Carsales Network.
"We have a firm plan to renew the Beetle... And we don't only have a firm plan, we've done it -- we can visit the car... We can drive the car, already," Wittig said.
According to Wittig the Beetle will be unveiled in the short term -- "a couple more months," he told the Carsales Network. Insiders say the sales boss is most likely referring to a new Beetle concept rather than the production car.
Potentially the new generation Beetle could break cover at the Geneva show in March 2009. That would put the concept around 18 months ahead of a production car unveiling at Paris in 2010.
Exterior designer team member Frank Josef Breuer says the new car will be much more masculine in its execution.
"It will be a cool car. It will be more of a man's kind of car -- more masculine," Breuer told the Carsales Network.
"Right now it's a bit more female [biased]. The new car will be stronger... Tougher," he said.
According to Breuer: "The current car is really round, but you can play around with this line... You can give it more tension -- make it rounder here, a bit edgier there. The old Beetle wasn't just one segment of a circle, and this is something to play with [in the new design]."
"There's a lot of possibilities," he explained.
"The current Beetle is very architectural. The new one is more sporty ... It's sharpened, if we compare it to the current car."
Breuer also hinted that the car's packaging has been changed considerably.
"The problem with the old car was the screen was too far forward. We have fixed that," he said.
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