Think The Last VW Beetle Was Retro Enough? Hurtan Didn't, So They Built This

A German customer has commissioned Spanish coachbuilder Hurtan to turn the most recent generation of the Volkswagen Beetle into a one-off convertible. The build takes a car that already leaned heavily on nostalgia and pushes it further, replacing the factory roof with a fully open body rather than the soft-top arrangement Volkswagen itself offered during the model's final years.

That distinction is the point. The last Beetle was retro by design, with its curved haunches and upright stance echoing the original, but it was still a mass-produced car built to a price. Hurtan, a firm known for dressing modern mechanicals in hand-built retro bodywork, is effectively treating the Beetle as a starting point rather than a finished product. Because the commission is a single car for a private owner, there is no production run, no showroom availability and no published pricing.

For Saudi buyers, the story is more about appetite than access. The Beetle is no longer sold new, and its convertible version left the market with it, so anyone wanting an open-top small car with character now looks at the MINI Convertible, the Fiat 500C or a Mazda MX-5, with larger four-seat drop-tops from BMW and Ford Mustang serving shoppers who want more space. A custom build like this sits outside that picture entirely.

Shoppers drawn to one-off conversions should think carefully before chasing something similar. Structural work involved in removing a fixed roof affects rigidity, safety systems and how the car behaves in an impact, and registration and periodic inspection in the Kingdom can be complicated for vehicles that never left a factory in that configuration. Parts support, resale value and warranty coverage are all open questions with a builder that produces individual cars rather than volume models.