Unlike the old Portuguese-imported rear-engine-rear-wheel-drive Beetles that Goa is fond of, this officially launched model uses a front-engine-front-wheel-drive layout. The front wheels are powered by a transversely mounted 2.0-litre petrol engine which dishes out 116PS of power and 172Nm of torque. In case you are an automotive nerd that likes to keep all such figures by heart, then you’ll realise that this combination of numbers points towards the same 2.0-litre engine that the Skoda Octavia petrol was powered with when it was launched in India. In the Beetle, this engine is mated to a six-speed automatic gearbox without VW’s acclaimed DSG wizardry.
Ironically, this engine too sticks to the retro theme of the Beetle and employs decade old technology like a single overhead cam, 2 valves each for its four cylinder layout and a slow gearbox which takes ages to downshift when you suddenly decide to floor the throttle. Nevertheless, the setup is Bharat Stage 4 compliant and quite refined for its age. The Beetle, though a tad heavy for this engine, manages to hit the 100 km/h mark from standstill in under 15-seconds. We managed to extract and overall fuel efficiency figure that was slightly shy of the 11 kmpl mark. A better spec-ed engine, probably a 16V DOHC which can manage a better power to weight ratio, should be able to give better overall performance. But since the sales numbers aren’t going to be too steep for Volkswagen, they might not give another engine option a thought anytime soon.