Production starts in Mexico of new VW Beetle

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Volkswagen has officially started production of the new Beetle in Puebla, Mexico.

On this occasion Dr. Guido Westerwelle, the Federal Foreign Minister, Felipe Calderón, the Mexican President, and Hubert Waltl, Board Member for Production and Logistics at the Volkswagen Passenger Cars brand, visited the Volkswagen plant in Mexico.

“The Beetle is a strong symbol of our brand. It combines the emotional heritage of the original Beetle with the future of Volkswagen,” Hubert Waltl said in Puebla. “At the same time, the new Beetle and the engine plant we are building in Silao represent the great confidence we place in Mexico as a manufacturing location. As one of the main manufacturers of compact class vehicles, Volkswagen de México is a key building block in our growth strategy for North America.” Some 300 guests from politics and industry attended the ceremony in Puebla.

The Beetle wrote a success story in the USA in particular: That is where the mobility icon from Wolfsburg was sold almost five million times between 1949 and 1981. The New Beetle took up the thread of this Beetle Mania, with a total of 1.15 million units built in Puebla selling between 1997 and 2010. The latest Beetle celebrated its world premiere in April this year and will be in dealers’ showrooms in Germany from this fall.

The Puebla plant is the largest automobile factory in Mexico and one of the Volkswagen Group’s biggest vehicle manufacturing plants. It supplies North and South America as well as Europe with the new Jetta volume model. The Beetle and Golf Variant are built exclusively by Volkswagen de México for world markets. In 2010, the factory produced some 435,000 vehicles. Puebla also manufactures engines for the American continent and with its workforce of over 15,000 is one of Mexican industry’s largest employers.