Something I'd meant to comment on when it happened was the end of the line for the original VW Beetle. The last one rolled off of the assembly line in Mexico a couple of weeks ago, ending sixty-some odd years of production for the original model.

I have a particular fondness for the original Beetle given my mom's prediliction for them. She drove one for years. Well, not just one, as she went through a number of them, but for years it was her car of choice.

Many of my earliest memories of going places with my mother are in a Beetle. I can remember fighting with my sister Cathy on a fairly regular basis about who got to ride in the well, the depression behind the back seat meant more for storage than people. This was back in the day when you didn't need to put all auto passengers under the age of 18 in five-point restraint (not to mention back when I was small enough to actually fit in such a space, which takes some imagining nowadays).

I can also remember times when we had a convertible bug, and the ease of both putting the top down and the times when we'd have to hurry to get it back up if we got caught in rain. We didn't have many of these, but when we did it was a lot of fun, though probably not for my mom when she'd be driving it to work on all those winter nights.

My sister Maureen still has an original bug, a light blue one with white convertible top that she's been dragging around with her for years, unwilling to part with it but also not quite in a position to have it restored.

Given the happy family history with the bug, you can imagine that I'm a little dubious about the new Beetles. I imagine there's a British person about my age having similar misgivings about the new Minis. In both cases, you've got cars intended for the masses reborn for the hip and trendy with disposable income.

I've never been in a new Beetle, so I suppose I shouldn't dismiss them out of hand, but I find it hard to cotton to a car that comes with a bud vase. The real Beetle wouldn't have had such frippery.