Many license plates were born over the years, but very few ended up becoming icons of our civilization. The Volkswagen Beetle, despite its many shortcomings, is one of the few that will forever be mentioned in the history books of our species.
Alongside much more current vehicles such as the Chevrolet Suburban, Honda Accord or Ford F-150, the tiny Beetle is one of the oldest license plates in the world: it was launched in 1938 and production actually continued in some parts of the world. world until 2003.
During all that time, more than 21.5 million Beetle units were manufactured and sold, and this achievement is not due to some luxurious feature of the model, or the fact that it has an incredibly impressive engine, but because it was simple to use, fun to drive and most importantly, cheap.
It was also instantly recognizable regardless of the year it was manufactured, as the Beetle's design changed little over the six decades it remained in production.
Even the New Beetle, Volkswagen's attempt to revive the moniker in the late 1990s, had pretty much the same design lines: it was all round.
Why, then, would anyone try to create an angular, sharp Beetle inspired by Tesla's Cybertruck? Probably because that's what everyone with a little talent for digitally manipulating shapes and sizes has been doing since 2019, when Elon Musk first introduced his toolbox on wheels to the public.
The rendering of the Beetle Cybertruck
The latest attempt to remake iconic cars in the form of the Cybertruck was recently made at the behest of British company Leasing Options. Five cars have gone under the digital knife, including the MINI we discussed last week and today's Volkswagen Beetle.
We'd be pretty unhappy with how the MINI would have looked if someone had actually made it in the Cybertruck's image, but we found the Beetle's attempt even worse.
One look at the model is enough to know that it is not adorable at all. The curves that are a hallmark of the line have been replaced by sharp edges.
The large wheel arches are still there, but no longer hugging the wheels as they take shape, but struggling to subdue them with brute force.
The Bug's beautiful nose is now an aggressive muzzle, and even the car's eyes, those round headlights that so many people have adorned with eyelashes over the years, have been replaced with square LEDs.
In a word, ugly, and not something that can easily be invisible and there's more where that came from, so watch out for extra abominations.
Want to know more or talk to us about the topic? follow our page on Facebook! A place for discussion, information and exchange of experiences. You can also follow us on Instagram.
English 
Portuguese 
Spanish 
Japanese 
German 
Hindi 