Not the People's Car

VW has just released the new Beetle... and it looks a lot better, and is a lot better than the old one.

It's basically the 911's chubby little brother

The thing is... it's not very hard to be better than the outgoing Beetle. That car was first put on sale in 1997, which meant it was competing with cars like this:

The Paseo.. So under... whelming

So, what is the new one like? More or less, pretty good. Check out a good review here. 

But here is the issue. The car costs upwards of $25,000. If you include the DSG gearbox, the sunroof, and a premium package, you are going to be spending about $28,500 - which means over $30,000 once all the taxes and fees are included. 

That's a lot of money for a somewhat sporty car with a 2.0-liter gasoline engine with 200 horsepower and 207 pound-feet of torque. Actually, that's not just a lot of money, that is a huge pile of money. The Beetle turbo should be competing with factory turner Mazda 3's, hot Ford Focuses, and the rest in the tuner compact market. At $28,500, the Beetle is playing with the WRX, Mustang, Genesis Coupe, and Camaro. And lets be honest, in that bracket, its chubby ass gets spanked all over the road..