Americans soon
will be able to dust off their bell-bottoms and beads, stick
some Buffalo Springfield in the tape deck and clatter off to the
folk festival
in a newly made version of the old-style 1970s Volkswagen Bug
Starting in
September, Nostalgia Mo- motor cars Inc., a Phoenix, Ariz.-based
maker of classic autos, will roll out some 10,000 of the old-model
Bugs, also
known as Beetles, making them available in the United States for
the first
time since 1979.
Volkswagen
still makes the rear-wheel-drive Bug in Mexico. But because the
car fails to meet U.S. emission and safety standards, sales have
been limited
to Latin America.
Introduced
to the United States in the 1950s and reaching the height of their
popularity in the 1970s with the help of an innovative series of
advertisements,
more than 22 million of the Bugs with their distinctive-sounding,
rear-mounted,
air-cooled engines have been sold worldwide.
Nostalgia said
its version, modified to conform to U.S. standards, will sell for
about $12,500, which would make it one of the lowest-priced cars
on the market.
The product
offering comes after Volkswagen AG scored a hit with its sleeker,
modern version of the Beetle- appropriately called the New Beetle-
introduced
in 1998 and based on its popular front-wheel-drive Golf.
More than 150,000
of the New Beetles, which feature more conventional water-
cooled engines under the hood, have been sold in the United States,
said Jay
Callahan, a sales representative for the Curran Volkswagen dealership
in Stamford,
Conn.
"We're
not here to compete head-to- head with the new Bug," Nostalgia
president-
Brad Randolph said. "We're trying to take people back. People
had a lot of firsts
in the VW Bug, whether it was a first car or a first kiss."
Randolph said
customers soon will be able to order the cars from the company's
www.nostalgiamotorcars.com Web site or from dealers throughout the
United
States.
"California
and Florida, especially, will be great outlets" for the cars,
Randolph
said. He added that nostalgia and a low price are expected to make
purists
and younger drivers the target markets.
