Volkswagen Beetle

Our verdict

The Volkswagen Beetle was a nice idea once, but now its dashboard flower has wilted. It’s mechanically old and stylistically odd.

Comfort

If you're in the front it's OK, thanks to a soft ride and typically supportive VW seats. In the back the rounded roof does you in.

Performance

The Beetle's engines are VW last-generation, or even generation-before-last. The 1.4 is a real slug, and neither the 1,6, 1.9TDi or 2.0 can get themselves under the 10sec to 62 barrier. Only the 1.8T manages it.

Cool

They resisted the Herbie stripes, but even so. Trying too hard is one thing, but to try this hard and fail is simply criminally uncool.

Quality

The Beetle emerged when VW was going all-out for interior quality, and it's still up there with the best. The plastics in the cabin are uniformly excellent, and it's not over-larded with fake metallic gewgaws like a Mini is.

Handling

The Beetle is fine when your beetling about, but not when you're in a hurry. The handling is soggy and the body motions poorly damped. The shaky cabrio compounds the trouble.

Practicality

The Beetle isn't practical, because the sloping tail cuts out rear seats and boot space. But at least the rear seats fold. And the cabrio doesn't lose boot space when the roof folds, because it just sits on top like a rucksack.

Running costs

Despite the poor performance, CO2 figures for even the small engines are unimpressive, so watch for the taxman if it's a company car. Even the 1.9TDI, which gets under 120g/km in a Golf Bluemotion, is 143g/km here. But otherwise, servicing is at usual VW rates, depreciation remains low (especially for the cabrio) and insurance reflects the feeble performance.