2012 VW Beetle To Debut Before 2011 New York, Shanghai Auto Shows

WOLFSBURG, Germany — The 2012 Volkswagen Beetle, the latest version of one of the best-selling and best-loved automotive nameplates in history, will make its global debut in a marketing alliance with MTV on April 18 and go on display later that week at the 2011 New York Auto Show and 2011 Shanghai Auto Show, Volkswagen told Inside Line.

A Volkswagen of America spokesman also confirmed on Monday that the 2012 Beetle will go on sale here later this year. Pricing has not been announced.

The splashy debut of the 2012 Beetle will kick off in Shanghai, China, with an MTV Sound System "celebration" hosted by MTV VJs, followed by MTV World Stage events in Berlin and New York City, the automaker said. The New York debut will be streamed live on WorldStage.MTV.com, except in the U.K. Volkswagen has recruited The Black Eyed Peas to help with the New York unveiling.

No details about the car were released, with Volkswagen saying only that "the new Beetle's exterior reinterprets the silhouette of the famous Volkswagen Beetle and combines stylistic elements borrowed from the original with the latest technology." The smart money is on a cutesy styling theme with a slightly more aggressive look.

It is not certain what the name for the latest iteration of the Beetle will be. In its media materials on Monday, the German automaker referred to the car as "The 21st Century Beetle." The Beetle has its roots in Germany and the Great Depression of the 1930s, when it was championed by Ferdinand Porsche, the legendary auto designer, and Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, who envisioned a volkswagen or "people's car."

Later, the Beetle would have enduring popularity in the U.S., despite a rocky official start here. The first officially imported Volkswagen arrived in New York on January 17, 1949, and the automaker sold just two cars here that year. "The Volkswagen seemed out of place in a U.S. market dominated by large, powerful automobiles, and the American press helped little by choosing to call it 'Hitler's car,'" according to the book Car Crazy: The Official Motor City High-Octane, Turbocharged, Chrome-Plated, Back Road Book of Car Culture.

But the Beetle eventually became so popular here that it even had its own Hollywood movie, The Love Bug. That movie, which featured a Beetle named Herbie, debuted in 1968 and became one of the largest grossing films of the year, as well as spawning sequels.

The New Beetle rolled out in 1998 to much fanfare and in December 2009, Volkswagen told Inside Line that "revised naming would be a possibility" on the second-generation model.

Inside Line says: Time to get that office pool revved up on the new name for the VW Beetle. — Anita Lienert, Correspondent