The lost bug: the old VW beetle won the hearts of Americans. Guess why its successor deosn't have a chance.

Mr. Peters is an automotive writer in Washington, D.C., and a nationally syndicated columnist.

THE new Volkswagen Beetle symbolizes many things, including our continued romance with all things Baby Boomer. The Bug is the car in which Boomers were raised; it provided the transportation during the Summer of Love. But the differences between the Volkswagen of the Nineties and the beloved Beetle of the Sixties provide a disconcerting illustration of how America has changed in thirty years.

The new Beetle offered by Volkswagenwerk, AG, is an "economy" car with an estimated retail sticker price of $16,500 (about $20,000 for a well-equipped model) -- more than half the average American family's gross pre-tax annual income. By contrast, before it was cashiered from the U.S. market in the late 1970s, the old Beetle had a selling price of around $3,000, less than one-fourth the average family income of that era. For that reasonable sum, buyers got a durable little commuter car built around an ingenious, if primitive, air-cooled engine that needed no radiator, and hence no antifreeze, and no hoses -- just one fan belt. It was so simple that a torpid hippie could change the four spark plugs and adjust the points himself for less than $15.

The body was one of the very first "unitized" designs (integral frame and body) ever brought to mass market, designed to cut costs and reduce squeaks and rattles. Weighing in at a sprightly 1,800 pounds (compared to 3,995 for the "wide-track Pontiac") the frugal Beetle could deliver 27 miles per gallon on the highway, while Detroit-built dreadnoughts were down around 8 to 12 mpg.

The Beetle could be so economical because there were no air bags, no "crumple zones," no 5-mph bumpers to weigh it down. No computers or emissions controls detracted from the elemental simplicity of the air-cooled "boxer" engine developed by Ferdinand Porsche.

By the 1970s an onslaught of regulations from acronymic government agencies -- DOT, EPA, NHTSA -- was beginning to make it impossible to bring cheap basic transportation to market. Consumers' preferences would now take a back seat to government's.

What happened next is well known. American Motors -- small and thus less able to retool -- quickly went belly up. Chrysler was rescued from the slab only by the good offices of the very government that had nearly sealed its doom. General Motors and Ford suffered stupendous losses right up until the early 1990s -- and lost market share to the Japanese that they will not recover in the foreseeable future.

As for VW, it had to pull the venerable Beetle from the U.S. market when it was no longer possible (technically or economically) to modify it sufficiently to meet the ever-more stringent rules of Uncle Sam. In 1979 VW replaced the Beetle with the depressing Rabbit -- an ugly little drone with none of the endearing panache of its predecessor.

The spell was broken, and customers began to shop elsewhere. The "new" Bug is an effort to recapture the glow of days past. But the meddling of bureaucrats and professional "public citizens" has made the revived Beetle little more than a faint stylistic echo of its former self.

Underneath the new Beetle's familiar half-moon bodywork there are front-wheel drive, a water-cooled motor, airbags, an anti-lock braking system, and an engine with complicated computer controls. And the new Beetle carries a price tag that would choke a horse.

People are yearning for a genuinely frugal car that doesn't take a five-year loan to buy. Just ask folks south of the Border. Tens of thousands of "old" Bugs are still being built every year in countries that haven't yet enacted U.S.-style safety and emissions legislation.

That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with building a car that doesn't pollute much, and that will protect its occupants in a wreck. But don't expect it to come cheap, or become a legend.