The air bag: Catching the retro bug – but not all get it right

The 2015 Volkswagen Beetle does retro styling well. Courtesy Volkswagen ME

Retro seems to have become a bit too retro these days. If you discount most of the offerings from Chinese manufacturers that are simply slightly doctored amalgams of several cars, a bit like a spot-the-car competition with a line joining all the slices, almost everyone is on a bandwagon of some stripe.

Some of them are good, and work really well; some of them are pretty cynical and, quite frankly, an insult to the intelligence of the motoring public.

Among the Citroens, Fiats, Chryslers, Fords, Chevrolets, Minis (which aren’t, really) and quite a few throwback really expensive things, such as “updated” copies of Aston Martins, AC Cobras and a few other names dredged from the graveyard of the British motor industry, when there was a substantial one, stands the latest version of the ubiquitous Volkswagen Beetle.

One of the advantages, and there are few, believe me, of being a little bit more mature in years, is that I remember most of the retro cars when they were new and no one had thought for a moment that they might one day get a second wind. I’ve driven original examples of the Fiat 500, the Citroen 2CV, more Minis than you could shake a stick at and original versions of the E-Type Jaguar and Aston Martin DB5. The advantage of being older is that I have something to compare the new retro stuff to, because I can smile about being there the first time around.

So, getting back to the Beetle, it’s technically now on its third wind. Banished to the pit of mediocrity, the first revival Beetle, with its silly flower vase and trying-too-hard looks, is no loss. What we now have is a mature, characterful and well-appointed car that carries neat design reminders without being burdened with “chic”.

The body-colour dashboard has been done by everyone, but not with the top-hinged flap, over a glove compartment fit for nothing more than a pair of gloves. No one else has managed to combine relatively up-to-date engine and gearbox technology with the sound of the original engine. Believe me, as you build up the revs through the gears, and just as the turbo gets into its stride, you can hear the distinctive top-end tone of the flat-four, 1.2L, air-cooled gem that was the original Beetle’s original power plant. It’s an aural joy.

I could wax lyrically about this car, though it has already been tested and written up by my esteemed editor in these very pages, but what stands out more than anything else is that doing retro properly is more than just some flowery advertisement copy and misty-eyed looks. Volkswagen has achieved here what no other manufacturer has done, with anything like the same degree of realism: it has produced a car that figuratively transports you back in time.

And it has managed that without the poor-quality fittings, the noisy windows, the rubbish paint finish in garden-shed colours or handling and responses that feel as if they are being transmitted through a cake. The new version of the Volkswagen Beetle is textbook stuff – this is how to do retro properly.

Given the number of two-door hardtop saloons that I’ve driven over the years, ranging from dreadful Triumph Heralds and a really dire Skoda Octavia to the latest Bentley Continental GT and almost everything in between, I can honestly report that I would happily spend real money, of my own, on one of these.

It’s tricky to put a price on something that makes you smile every time you use it. You could say it’s priceless.