Volkswagen announces that it will stop manufacturing its legendary "Beetle"

[Juppitèr]

Volkswagen announced on Thursday that in 2019 it will definitively stop producing its legendary "Beetle", with two latest models to "celebrate the rich heritage" of a car that marked the history of the automobile.

The curvilinear sedan, which left its Nazi origins to become a global automotive phenomenon, is being put aside, while Volkswagen will concentrate on larger vehicles and electric cars.

"The loss of the Beetle after three generations and nearly seven decades, should provoke a varied range of emotions among its numerous devotees," said Hinrich Woebcken, CEO of Volkswagen North America.

Woebcken stressed that the company is taking a turn towards larger vehicles and electric cars so it will not build this model that began to be produced in 1938 and became po[CENSORED]r in the world in the early sixties.

The four-seater car attracted attention with its rear engine and is an object of worship around the world where there are numerous clubs of owners and fans of this unique model.

However, the executive left open the door to a resurrection of the Beetle. "Never say never," he said.

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Volkswagen plans to offer two final models; one coupe and another convertible. Both will have features that will evoke previous versions and a price of $ 23,305 or more, the company said.

The po[CENSORED]r car debuted in the US market in the early 1950s and massively became po[CENSORED]r with the Disney movie "The Love Bug" released in 1968.

The "Beetle", as it is called in English, stopped selling in the United States in 1979 but continued to be manufactured in Mexico and Brazil, according to the publication Car and Driver.

Volkswagen, made it reappear in the United States in 1997 and presented the "New Beetle."

However, the history of the car starts in the Nazi era. The first was developed by the Austrian engineer Ferdinand Porsche with the support of Adolf Hitler.

Andy Warhol made impressions with the car and a "Beetle" was also the most prominent car in the background of "Abbey Road", the last album of the Beatles that was recorded.

Beetle sales fell 3.2% to 15,667 in 2017 in the United States, a fraction of the sales of Jetta and Passat sedans.

At the Detroit Auto Show in January, the German automaker unveiled a renewed version of the Jetta and also unveiled the Atlas, a new medium-sized SUV.

Volkswagen continues to grapple with the consequences of the "dieselgate" scandal that erupted in September 2015.

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The company, which has already paid expensive government agreements, is fighting billions of dollars in additional claims filed by shareholders.

Those demands are due to the fact that Volkswagen's shares plummeted after the authorities punished the company for having installed in millions of vehicles devices that falsified the emissions of polluting gases and made them appear at tolerated levels.