Teste do Volkswagen Beetle Final Edition 2.5 L 170 HP 2019, O Último Volkswagen Beetle / Fusca Produzido, Volkswagen Beetle Final Edition 2.5 L 170 HP 2019, 10/07/2019, Puebla, México

Teste do Volkswagen Beetle Final Edition 2.5 L 170 HP 2019, O Último Volkswagen Beetle / Fusca Produzido, Volkswagen Beetle Final Edition 2.5 L 170 HP 2019, 10/07/2019, Puebla, México
Volkswagen Beetle Final Edition 2.5 L 170 HP 2019
Fotografia

The Beetle is dead -- and Volkswagen doesn’t have a successor. However, this isn’t the first time Volkswagen has put the Bug on the product chopping block. In the U.S., Volkswagen pulled the plug on the Beetle in 1979, only for it to return in 1998. That first-generation Beetle did soldier on south of the border, until 2003.

That’s right, Volkswagen finally sent the first-gen (rear-engine, air-cooled) Beetle out to pasture in Mexico in 2003 -- only 65 years since it first rolled off assembly lines. Most importantly, at least for this second Final Edition, Volkswagen honored these 2003 final vehicles with a special package: Última Edición. Only 3,000 of those Volkswagens rolled out of the Puebla, Mexico, factory and sported white wall tires, gobs of chrome and light blue or beige finishes. The cars were also as loaded as you could get a Beetle at the time, with a CD player, tinted glass and body-colored wheels. 

With the 2019 Final Edition Beetle, Volkswagen tips its hat at the Ultimate Edition with its packaging and trims. These coupes and convertibles start at the SE level and can head to the top-of-the-line SEL trims. That means there are no base S-models available as Final Editions, which might have been to preserve a few popular paint colors that fell outside of the Final Editions purview, as well as make for a more affordable Beetle. 

The lower-optioned Final Edition Beetles come standard with a push-button ignition, a 6.3-inch media touchscreen and 17-inch alloys. It also sports standard automatic wipers with rain sensors, eight-way adjustable heated front seats and a sunroof on coupe models. The SE models also sport cloth and leatherette seating surfaces -- harkening back to the budget-friendly seat covers from Beetles of yore. 

The higher-optioned SEL Final Editions get all of those features, as well as a standard Fender audio system, 18-inch disc wheels with white accents and leather seat coverings. The 18-inch wheels evoke the steel-wheel and whitewall tire look of the original final edition, without having to actually run whitewall tires and steel wheels. 

All Final Edition Beetles get some special touches outside of their standard option packages, too. They will feature about as much chrome as you can slap on a vehicle in this day and age, including the windows, bumpers and badges. Instead of telling the world about its turbocharged engine, Volkswagen replaced the Beetle Final Edition’s rear script with a stylized “Beetle.” The company also replaced the steering wheel clip -- the small metal garnish on the steering wheel -- with a Beetle embossed version. Both of these are small touches that make the Final Edition seem a little more special.

The folks at Volkswagen couldn’t emulate the Ultimate Edition’s powertrain or layout -- so there’s no rear-mounted flat-four here. Instead, the same powertrain is carried over from the 2018 model. That means there’s a 2.0-liter turbocharged four under the (front) hood, which makes 174 hp and 184 lb-ft of torque. That power goes through a six-speed automatic before hitting the front wheels. The manual transmission was dropped a few years back and stayed on the cutting room floor for this edition. 

The Beetle doesn’t feel fast -- despite its relatively light 3,045-pound curb weight -- but it’s quick enough to get you around town. However, if you move the gear selector over into manual mode, you can get it to start to feel sporty when you bring it close to redline. Turbo noise is present, too, but is hard to hear with the windows up. So, if you’re craving the whoosh and whistle, you might opt for the convertible: That way you can drop the top and get all the noise.

The Beetle’s suspension shouldn’t be a shock to VW devotees -- mostly because Volkswagen wouldn’t re-engineer the car for one special model. It uses a strut-style setup with a lower control arm up front and a multilink suspension with coil springs out back. Navigating harsh roads, the Beetle does a good job dealing with blemished surfaces. There’s no noticeable banging, even from the 18-inch wheels, when cresting deeper pot holes.

For the interior, the Beetle Final Edition doesn’t feel too far removed from the rest of the Beetle lineup. The same points are all there: the little Beetle box in the dash, with a normal glovebox directly below, a painted dashboard insert and the other accoutrements you’ll find with the rest of the Beetle lineup. Now, that wouldn’t be a problem on, say, the Beetle Dune -- but the Final Edition should feel more special than that. Sure, you get a steering wheel clip that denotes the edition and kind of separates it from the rest of the line. It’s only available on top-trimmed Beetles but isn’t as grandiose a sendoff as the Última Edición on the inside.

That being said, the interior is good -- the 6.3-inch media screen seems small on paper, with double-digit infotainment system screens filling headlines, but it works well and boots quickly. The premium Fender sound system gets loud enough to fill the world with your tunes and doesn’t distort at the top half of the dial. Apple CarPlay boots quickly and lets you immediately jump into your Spotify account. 

The Beetle isn’t Volkswagen’s flagship -- it hasn’t been in years -- but lives on as one of the most important cars VW (or any company) has ever built. With that in mind, this Beetle Final Edition probably won’t be too final and we can almost guarantee its return in the future -- just not the near future. 

The Final Edition does its best to live up to previous Beetle farewells and pays an honest homage to its predecessors. It doesn’t feel as special as the first-generation Beetle’s goodbye, but how could it?