Instrumented Test
When the current Volkswagen Beetle launched for 2012, the company made Winnetka-grade noise about having constructed a retromobile that would finally appeal to men. Yet the general consensus of men we know who’ve driven the new car seems to be, “Well, it’s an enjoyable car, but I still wouldn’t buy one.” Perhaps in an attempt to sway said men over to the “would purchase” side, VW revamped the Turbo model, in the process dubbing it the R-Line. See? It’s got that snappy “R” badge right there on the flat-bottomed steering wheel. For the princely sum of umpteen Roman talents, Porsche will slap an unsightly ducktail on your new 911, but the R-Line’s little flip is included in the price and actually looks right at home on the Bug.
The Beetle’s interior design remains some of the best available under $50,000. The detailing is note-perfect, and the overall treatment isn’t slavishly retro. Moreover, the diminutive VW refrains from the overly cartoonish, and it’s built of decent stuff. The only two dings go to an armrest that intrudes on one of the console-mounted cup holders and VW’s unfortunate infotainment system. The seats are all-day comfortable, and the Fender-branded audio system delivers decent sound, although we don’t get the Fender/VW synergy. We suppose it makes more sense than a B.C. Rich–branded stereo.
On the road, we found the nuevo-Käfer an absolute treat. It’s largely a previous-generation GTI underneath, a car that landed a spot on our 10Best list last year despite being ripe for replacement. The brakes aren’t the most communicative we’ve sampled, but you’re not exactly jamming your foot into a puddle of body-temperature custard, either. Shift action from the six-speed manual is positive and satisfying, while the light clutch is typical Volkswagen (read: not particularly feelsome). The steering is nicely weighted and the car turns in with confidence-inspiring precision. A high-speed flow comes easily on a serpentine mountain road, and you’ll find yourself jinking hither and thither in Zen-like fashion until the brake pedal starts to succumb to mushiness.
Mushy? Why? We were hardly on the brakes! It’s because of how the car manages that impeccable turn-in. Volkswagen’s XDS brake-based limited-slip-differential facsimile is the culprit. Through a protracted series of high-speed left/right corners over the Sierra Nevada’s Monitor Pass, the brakes were always working even if we weren’t on them to do much more than balance the car prior to turning into a bend. This is all a long-winded way of suggesting that hard-core canyon rats would do well to install a set of pads capable of withstanding higher temperatures.
But what hard-core canyon rat is going to splash out for a Beetle? Forget the cheerful-cheerleader body style for just a moment. The R-Line has some very heavy internal competition in the form of the new GTI, a car that’s easily a generation ahead of everything in the C-segment. The new über-Golf smacked down the belligerent Ford Focus ST in a comparo of two Euro-spec cars last year. The GTI’s performance numbers trump everything this Beetle laid down, save for top speed and observed fuel economy, which we credit to a lot of top-gear highway cruising in the Bug. Under identical conditions, we’d expect the GTI, with its 4-mpg-better EPA highway rating, to best the R-Line here as well.
The Beetle’s a certain kind of fun car. Some of the more perverse among us like it best with a diesel hooked up to a manual. The whole torquey, jaunty experience of the TDI model is just more relaxed than the R-Line, more in keeping with the car’s joy-bringing mission. The oil-burner/stick combo is also just off-kilter enough to meld nicely with the car’s different-but-not-weird image. The R-Line, in contrast, although nicely executed, doesn’t do anything better than the GTI does, and the price difference is negligible. Our rather-loaded tester sailed through checkout at $31,115. An equivalent GTI comes in $700 less spendy. We found the R-Line to be enjoyable, yes, but who couldn’t use an extra $700?
