To Be Cute as a Bug Isn't Enough Anymore Volkswagen of America MANSCAPED Volkswagen's redesign of the Beetle is intended to increase its appeal to men. THE New Beetle is dead. Long live the all-new Beetle, as Volkswagen calls the successor, squeezing together the adjectives just as it has squashed down the roof. The 2012 car abandons the iconic arched silhouette of its predecessor and in the process shifts its style and personality. The new model is six inches longer and 3.5 inches wider, making it more practical, Volkswagen says. It is also more macho. "More power, less flower" is the slogan. For Volkswagen managers, that means luring more men. No car had more female appeal than the New Beetle - according to VW, women accounted for nearly 70 percent of buyers. At a press introduction last fall in the rolling hills of northern Virginia, Rainer Michel, vice president for product marketing and strategy at Volkswagen of America, said he aimed to get the male-female ratio to 50-50; in the first few months sales were running 43 percent men, 57 percent women. The successor to the New Beetle begins at $20,565, and $24,165 for the Turbo, which looks tougher with larger 18-inch wheels and a rear spoiler. VW initially offered two engines: a base 2.5-liter 5-cylinder making 170 horsepower or a 2-liter turbocharged 4-cylinder rated at 200 horsepower. A TDI version, with a 140-horsepower turbodiesel 4-cylinder, is to be introduced at the Chicago auto show next month and arrive at dealerships in late summer. Like the New Beetle, the newest Beetles sold in this country are assembled in Puebla, Mexico. Klaus Bischoff, VW's design chief, said the designers were asked not to update the New Beetle, but to return to the original model to which it paid homage, the best-selling car of all time. They were given the paradoxical brief to "design a new original." The new car retains the round headlights of the New Beetle as well as the angular aero chin of the new generation of Volkswagens. A bar along the rocker panel - a vestigial running board, if you will - visually emphasizes the car's length. It is the rear end that nags the eye. The symmetrical double arcs of the previous model's fenders have given way to an elongated rear fender. The lines of the fender, roof and hatch meet haphazardly, like the intersection of three meandering country roads. Then there is that squashed roof. It makes the car seem deflated - the pneumatic New Beetle with a slow leak. As you look at it you get the feeling that when the designers finished the car they gave it a final whump on top - like the pat you'd apply to fat Dagwood sandwich before you took it to the den to watch the second half of the game. Even the Beetle's color palette has been toughened up. Gone are the soft blues, greens and yellows in favor of harder hues including a bold Tornado Red and a brighter yellow. Inside, the designers succeeded in replacing fashion-victim style with usable space. The Siberia atop the New Beetle's dashboard - a vast expanse where Ray Bans and ChapSticks were exiled beyond reach - has shrunk to a more sensible proportion. A clever mechanism releases and slides the front seat, giving access to the rear. Back there, amazingly, is enough headroom for a 6-footer, thanks to a scoop in the roof liner, though legroom is still minimal. The instrument panel offers a nicely arranged trio of instruments, suggesting, oddly, the three arcs of the body of this car's predecessor. On some models, the dashboard wears attractive body-color paint. Another option is simulated carbon fiber. But the big change inside the Beetle is the disappearance of the flower vase. The vase was the soul of the New Beetle and its absence is more proof of VW's determination to de-feminize the car. Introduced in 1998, the cutely geometric New Beetle was a lovable, rolling logo of a car. It was the production version of the Concept One, famously designed in California by J Mays and Freeman Thomas, two future Detroit design stars. The car was partly shaped by the change from the original Beetle's configuration (rear engine, rear drive, air-cooled) to the more conventional modern format (front engine, front drive, water-cooled). The latest car is front-drive as well.