2017 Volkswagen Beetle Convertible Denim Edition
Channel: Auto Today
Date: 06/01/2017

2017 Volkswagen Beetle Convertible Denim Edition.
If you remember the ’60s, you weren’t really there.” That quote is attributed to a lot of folks who definitely were there, including rockers and acid-heads Grace Slick, Pete Townshend, Wavy Gravy, and Timothy Leary, but the earliest citation extant—1982—credits comedian Charles Fleischer. Conversely, those of us who remember the actual ’70s don’t need That ’70s Show reminding us of what we only wish could be forgotten, such as Whip Inflation Now buttons, lining up to buy gasoline, or watching yet another rerun of Gilligan’s Island because, no, James Hunt was not racing Niki Lauda live on cable.

Issues of memory and the nostalgic impulse not aligning with historic reality certainly apply to this car: the latest special edition of the Volkswagen Beetle, a convertible package dubbed the Denim. Where the Beetle Dune strives to evoke the 1960s without the drugs, the Denim supposedly echoes the Jeans edition Type 1 Beetles of the mid-1970s. Anyone who imagines that these 2016 special editions genuinely revive the cars we drove back then is engaged in an exercise of selective memory, if not suffering hallucinations.

Based on the previous, sixth-generation Golf’s front-drive platform with a turbocharged, water-cooled, four-cylinder mounted transversely in front, rather than the Type 1’s air-cooled flat-four mounted at the rear, the 2016 Beetle Denim is a much better car than anything built in 1975—when, we’ll remind you, everyone thought convertibles were doomed to imminent extinction. The most ’70s thing about this modern Bug is the “jeans-inspired” material used for the folding top and the interior upholstery. It vaguely resembles a pair of genuine denim trousers in the same way that the double-knit leisure suits worn by ’70s country-music stars making guest appearances on Hee-Haw were “jeans-inspired.”

But let us not be purists about our Beetles or 501s. (Levi’s, unlike Beetles, are not better today—trust us.) The material suggests denim clothing, at least, and the coloration and contrast stitching look handsome against the Stonewashed Blue paint of our test car. Like other Beetle convertible tops, this blue-jeansy one is a thick, triple-layer design with a glass window. It does a great job of insulating against noise and weather, folds with the touch of a button at speeds up to 31 mph, and doesn’t impose any severe visibility problems whether up or down. The Denim edition includes 17-inch aluminum wheels in the retro-looking Heritage Graphite design, a blue and silver dashpad, and manually adjustable sport seats that have denim-look centers, white stitching, and little red tags on the seat pockets emblazoned with Beetle logos. Visually, it’s handsome and somewhat more masculine than the ladybug dots and daisy decals that often emblazoned 1970s Beetles.

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