If you were following the massive international launch of the 2012 Beetle you might have noticed that a few news sites published the images before the press embargo of 1pm GMT. Those sites have felt the full wrath of some frightening VW lawyers and retracted their stories.

These then are the first official pictures of the 21st Century Beetle. Some UK sites are claiming an early 2012 release date, so we presume we’re looking at a July-September launch in SA. We’ll keep you posted.

It seems the car is based on the chassis from the Golf 6, but hey, which cars in the VW stable aren’t. Expect a full line up of VW engines, from the little 1.4 litre twincharged unit, all the way to a 2.0 turbo.

The interior looks like every other VW I’ve ever driven, which is no surprise, but at least you’ll be able to spec all the goodies like SatNav and the HDD music system with touch screen.

Ciro De Siena – OverdriveTV