2013 Volkswagen Beetle Convertible: Motoramic Drives

In front of a Santa Monica beachfront hotel, the headquarters for the launch of the 2013 Volkswagen Beetle Convertible, sat a shiny new red cabrio, completely upstaged by an original two-toned 1952 model. This symbolized VW's entire presence at the L.A. Auto Show last week. VW spokespeople kept claiming that the Beetle wasn't "about retro," but the evidence showed a different narrative; the Beetle, more than any contemporary car except perhaps the Ford Mustang, counts on nostalgia for sales. At the launch event, the company made a big deal of introducing three special-edition cars, each designed to invoke the spirit of a different decade: The '50s, '60s, and '70s, with only 650 having been built combined. Even though they were basically no more than nostalgic jewel boxes, they got a lot of interest. Beetles rarely bring to mind the present day.

First, though, a brief word from the contemporary Beetle convertible, which marks the first time that the third-generation Beetle has taken down the top. In its own right, this cabrio is quite a triumph of design, longer, lower, and sleeker than previous models, with exterior colors melding beautifully into interior dash and door accents. If you buy a yellow car, then you get a yellow car, inside, outside and all around. It's like driving a piece of beautifully overripe fruit.

In terms of mechanics, the convertible is exactly the same as the new hard top Beetle coupe. It's not particularly fast, but it handles city driving and light highway work efficiently enough. A Turbo edition, retailing at a few thousand more than the 2.5-liter standard engine, features a nicely stiff suspension and a little extra spring, and also has a nifty racing-design motif in the upper-reaching interior trim packages. A TDI 2.0 Diesel model handles more or less the same as the conventional one, but gets up to 41 mpg. It delivers everything you might expect from a Beetle.

Of course, they also convert, and it takes a lot less work than it once did. The top goes up in less than 10 seconds and down in about 11, with no effort beyond pushing a button. I didn't get to enjoy the full convertible experience, because it rained on my drive day. But we put down the top from time to time anyway. There's a wind shear in back and a large-sloping front windshield, so we barely even got damp, as though there were a protective force field over the car. In serious rain, this wouldn't work, but you can still go topless in the mist, so to speak.

But drive day belonged to the nostalgia mobiles. My partner and I started in the 1950s edition, all black with cool-looking chrome "heritage" wheel rims. Inside, the seats were sedate tan leather. As we drove it up the Pacific Coast Highway toward Malibu, it felt like we were living in a very specific interpretation of the '50s, not an American suburban tail-finned nightmare, but something a little more businesslike and actuarial. Volkswagen has boldly styled this edition to make it feel like the kind of car Orson Welles would have driven through postwar Europe in "The Third Man."