I recently purchased a 2002 Volkswagen New Beetle GLS. I'm still as thrilled driving it as I was two months ago (October 2002) when I bought it.

This car, particularly the manual transmission model, gives plenty of power and pep. There's plenty of room in the front seat, and the same could be said of the back seat if your passengers are 5'9" or less. The dashboard is so vast as to be perfect for serving dinner for two. The styling of this vehicle is impressive, as many a pedestrian has exclaimed while crossing in front of me at a cross-walk -- and most of the time on the walk signal (specifically, I often lip-read the phrase "You rock!"). This is the perfect car for one person or the trendy couple, but I wouldn't recommend it for child seats. The setup in the back seat for working with a child seat is nice, but one would have to be pretty agile with no joint problems to be willing to deal with it on a daily basis.

The only con I will list at length (in addition to the list above), is the sun visor. It works great if the sun is right in front of you, but if the sun is off to the side, moving the visor around to cover the side is futile. This is because the visor is way too short (with the door window being as wide as it is) to give you any sun protection, unless the sun is right at the front corner of the window. The reason it's short is the wide clock/temperature instrument panel above the rear view mirror and between the visors. The visor actually extends only about two inches into the door window. As my eyes are very sensitive to the sun, I plan on putting together or purchasing an "extender", perhaps a hinged or sliding apparatus, to allow me to extend the length of the visor. As my morning/evening commutes are north/south, this will come in handy, and allow me to drive with both hands on the wheel, instead of one hand over my left eye!

Other than that one annoying con, I highly recommend buying or leasing the 2002 Volkswagen New Beetle. You'll be glad you did!
Amount Paid (US$): 15500
Condition: New
Model Year: 2002
Model and Options: GLS, manual, AC, cruise control, heated front seats