Die vase ist verboten

The details are slipping out.  There’s already been much buzz about what’ll be inside it … talk of powertrains and dual-clutch automated manual transmissions and wheelbase platforms borrowed from current models.

Me, I’ve been waiting for the look.

Much is at stake here.  As I’ve noted, the Beetle is a small-but-mighty car, with much history.  Its powers are largely unexplainable.  So it’s not a casual thing for Volkswagen to remake this auto.

Earlier this month, Autoblog posted spy photos – real photos – of the 2012 Beetle that it snapped while the new Beetle spun through a German neighborhood.  You can tell it’s in Germany by the signs in the background.  Oh, and there’s a kids’ playground back there, too … er, they call it a “spielplatz,” I believe.

Ha! “Der Kafer … uh … fuhr durch … uh … den spielplatz!”  The Beetle drove by the playground! 

I’m sure that’s wrong.

Anyway, I don’t know quite what to say about the new look. Check it out.  It seems so … respectable, grown up.  Almost patrician. But in a very odd sort of way. When I first saw it, I thought of Alfred Hitchcock.  Lord knows why. He’s hardly German.

Maybe because I remember his mystery-show introductions on TV. With his massive round head, big nose and loose jowels, he would utter an aristocratic “Good eeeevening” as knighted Britishers do.

But then the fun would start … quirky shows featuring twists and turns and always a bit of dry humor.  There was much wry wit beneath Sir Al's veneer.

(Or maybe it's because if you take Hitchcock's signature line-art profile used in the show, flip it, then lay it on its back, it looks kind of like the car. See?! Weird.) 

I’m expecting the 2012 Beetle to be just that – a smidge of fun beneath the veneer. Not quite a serious man’s car – never that – but a step up in, sniff, respectability.  More mature. I’m guessing it’ll have more power, a better ride, a wider wheelbase and perhaps even be longer.  The photos suggest as much.

But no flower vase on the dashboard like my Beetle has. That would go too far.

Forbidden!

“Verboten!” 

And yes, hardly a bug.

And that’s the rub.

The bug always has been small, bumpy, childlike, nimble and clumsy both, a bit noisy, joked about, made fun of, dissed by the car crowd. Worth slugging your neighbor over.

No longer, it seems. This Beetle has a junior limo look to it.  Heck, Gordon Gekko could light a cigar inside and still feel secure.

Home, James! 

“Um das haus, James!”

I guess I’m okay with that. 

But can we stop by the spielplatz first?