Volkswagen Beetle 53 Edition brings Herbie back to life | CarAdvice

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Volkswagen Beetle 53 Edition brings Herbie back to life

VOLKSWAGEN BEETLE
By Tim Beissmann
FIND DEALS

Volkswagen is bringing back the love, unveiling the nostalgic Volkswagen Beetle 53 Edition ahead of a limited production run exclusively for Spain.

Inspired by Herbie – the anthropomorphic 1963 Volkswagen Beetle that shot to fame in the 1968 film The Love Bug – the Beetle 53 Edition sports the iconic movie star car’s famous ’53′ racing number and tri-colour body stripes.

The Volkswagen Beetle 53 Edition also features unique 17-inch alloy wheels and a ‘Beetle 53’ badge on the glove box.

The 21st century Love Bug will be available with three engines – a 77kW 1.2-litre petrol, a 77kW 1.6-litre diesel and a 103kW 2.0-litre diesel – although surprisingly the 53 Edition package is not available with the top-performance 125kW 2.5-litre petrol powerplant from the Beetle Turbo.

The all-new Volkswagen Beetle is set to launch in Australia in the second quarter of 2013.

The Beetle Convertible headed for next month’s Los Angeles Auto Show is yet to be confirmed for our market.


 

  • save it for the track

    Doesn’t seem to fit the demographic of the current buyers of ‘the new beetle’. With the small vase in them and everything… If VW were serious about a special edition, they would have designed and built a rear engined, rear wheel drive model. With all the modifications done to the old bugs over the years they would surely have learnt how to make them go, stop and handle well. Heck even a decent set of larger wheels and tyres made an old bug out corner more expensive and more powerful vehicles. Not to mention how hard some went with modifications of the like of a Stan Pobjoy motor etc.  These current ‘new beetles’ are just Golfs with a different shell. No self respecting owner of an original beetle would buy one of these.

    • Igor

      Rear engined, rear drive just for a special edition ?
      Maybe you need a lesson in basic economics.

    • SirRob

      The vase is gone I think you’ll find, Mr Homework.

    • SirRob

      The vase is gone I think you’ll find, Mr Homework.

      • save it for the track

        As far as I am concerned any ‘new beetle’ should have been rear drive and rear engine to start with. This abomination they call a Beetle is an insult to the original. I wouldn’t know if the vase was gone, because I don’t waste time looking at the specs/features of the thing. The few I have seen on the road over the years seem to have the vase, along with frangipani stickers on the rear windows…

  • Unidexter Hopping

    Yeah, you get a Buddy Hacket, Michele Leet and Dean Jones blow up dolls with the deal.

  • KiaK9

    herbie? sounds like herpes and crabs met

    • Force-15

      If you reckon that’s bad, my Rover crew used to have a Volkswagen Beetle Mudbash buggy called ‘Herpie’. Appropriately it was nicknamed ‘the love bug’…

  • Scruples

    If it doesn’t fly I am not interested

  • Rj

    The beetle gets the 1.4tsi and 2l tsi engines as well. there is no 2.5l turbo version