GERMAN automobile giant Volkswagen has ended the production of its iconic vehicle the Beetle in a move that could have a significant impact on the Nigerian car market as it is the country’s work horse.
Regarded as the common man’s car, the Volkswagen Beetle has traditionally been the favourite vehicle of junior civil servants like nurses, teachers and government officials. So popular was the car that Volkswagen opened an assembly plant in Nigeria to produce the Beetle, along with a range of other vehicles.
At the end of 2019, however, Volkswagen bid goodbye to the Beetle in a new advert campaign called The Last Mile. Its campaign which includes an animated film with a cover song from The Beatles’ Let It Be album was launched on digital billboards in Times Square in New York.
It ends with the car taking flight as a bug with the words Where one road ends, another begins. Volkswagen said in 2018 that it would be discontinuing the iconic Beetle compact car in 2019 as it looked toward a future with mass-market electric cars.
In January last year, the company said it would build a new electric vehicle at its Chattanooga, Tennessee, plant as it shifts toward zero-emission vehicles. Volkswagen’s
last Beetles were sold on Amazon to symbolise the company’s embrace of the future.
