It’s been about six years since old-school Volkswagen Beetle taxis were made illegal in Mexico City, it’s been about 15 years since the last air-cooled Beetle rolled off the line, and a staggering 80 years since the basic design of the car was set. These cars shouldn’t still be doing anything, by any conventional, rational measure. But the Beetle’s never been all that conventional or even always rational, so it’s still going, doing real work for real people.
We’ve written (and video’d) before about Beetle (or Vocho, as they say in Mexico) taxis holding on to some very specific niches in Mexico, and it appears we’ve found one more: the labyrinthine village of Taxco.
Taxco is a very old town, settled in 1529, and the tiny, hilly winding streets and remarkable density have made the old town oddly tailor-made to the Beetle’s strengths: it needs small, cheap, tough, nimble cars with good traction: essentially, a quick list of some of the venerable Beetle’s strengths.
I’m sure at some point, these old Vochos will have to retire from active duty, and a town teeming with Beetles will be just a memory.
Still, it’s 2018, and they’re not gone yet. That’s far later than I think anyone would have guessed, so I’m making no predictions for how much longer they can go, preferring to enjoy the tart, happy slap of gleeful surprise when I find they’re still around.