What Makes This 2001 VW New Beetle on BaT So Special?

If you were looking for a sporty two-door in 2001, you could have bought yourself a Porsche Boxster. Or, perhaps, you could have bought yourself two Porsche Boxsters, one in silver for formal occasions and another in bright yellow for the weekend. What's crazier than buying two nearly identical Porsches? Spending the same amount of money on a single Volkswagen.

📌 The Core Development

The New Beetle RSi was the most expensive Beetle ever sold, and one can now be found on Bring a Trailer (which, like Car and Driver , is part of Hearst Autos). One of only 250 examples sold to the public, all of them silver, this Pac-Man-shaped wunderbug hails from the era when VW boss Ferdinand Piëch was forever doing nutty things like stuffing twelve-cylinder engines into Volkswagen-badged luxury sedans and ordering engineers to build the Bugatti Veyron.

Piëch personally owned a New Beetle RSi (his was blue), as the car was much more than just a special edition of a semi-circular Golf. Pairing six-cylinder power with Haldex all-wheel-drive, it was more powerful than ordinary versions of the New Beetle, and it also featured carbon-fiber bodywork and an extremely wide 18-inch wheel and tire package.

🔍 Background & Sector Context

For the time, this slightly cartoonish-looking VW was an absolute rocket, especially in the corners. With all that grip and the ability to get power down early on exit thanks to all-wheel drive, it was a little Pokémon-looking pocket rocket. If only it hadn’t been so eye-wateringly expensive—the equivalent of $80,000 when new, not adjusted for inflation—it would have been a credible rival to the likes of the Golf R.

Power comes from a 3.2-liter VR6 engine, which also appeared in the fourth-generation Golf R32. It’s rated for 221 horsepower and 236 pound-feet of torque, but the real appeal is the fantastic soundtrack. Stir things up with the six-speed manual gearbox, and this Beetle flies.

📊 Industry & Real-World Impact

Inside, it’s awash with carbon fiber panels and aluminum accents. The fixed-back racing buckets are particularly incredible, and VW’s designers thoughtfully included a grab bar on the dashboard for your terrified passengers to cling to.

🔮 Strategic Outlook & What Lies Ahead

This example has the equivalent of just 11K miles on the odometer, and while the bodywork