After nearly seven decades of production, Volkswagen has announced that it will stop production of its iconic Beetle cars next year.
The group has no immediate plans to revive the Beetle again, but the company wouldn’t rule it out. “I would say ‘never say never’,” VW of America CEO Hinrich Woebcken said in a statement.
The original VW Beetle, developed in the 1930s, made a journey from a product identified with Adolf Hitler to a symbol of Germany’s rebirth as a democratic, industrial powerhouse after World War Two.
In the 1960s, the Beetle was a small-is-beautiful icon of the postwar baby boom generation. Volkswagen discontinued U.S. sales of the “bug” in 1979, but continued production for Mexico and Latin America.