My husband and I were looking for a small commuter car with good mileage. We looked at Mazda 5, Ford Focus, Suzuki Aerio and etc. Finally we decided to see VW Golf but instead we saw cute little red VW Beetle in the dealer's parking lot and took for a test drive. My husband loved it from the first moment. So we bought it almost right away (it was on end of year sale) and currently enjoying it for the last 3 months.
We got the simplest model without any extra packages but please look at the cool features it has anyway:
1) It looks so small outside but it's really big inside.
Front passenger and driver has more space than our Volvo S40.
2) Very steady and quiet ride - you can go 85Mph and don't even notice. In short, I really love to ride on the streets and on the highway.
3) My husband praise its manual transmission. He said it's the smoothest transmission he drove in his life.
4) Front seats move all the way forward that gives very easy access to the rear seat. It's convenient to put a child in the car seat.
5) The car doesn't have computer but it shows outside temperature in F and C, has cruise control, power mirrors and windows, remote keyless entry, ABS and etc
6) Very good front, side and back views
7) It has 16in wide tires that gives great stability and you can turn nice on higher speed
8) It comes standard with all the anti-theft and safety features including side airbags
9) And I really like that car has 2 power outlets so you can charge 2 phones at the same time or charge phone and PDA or charge phone and heat milk for a baby :-)
Can you believe that all those features come standard?!

Nevertheless I already noted some bloopers like:
1) It consumes 29Mpg while driving in the mixed mode highway/city. I'd expect much better mileage for a small car but VW still uses old engine for Beetle that isn't tuned for that I guess.
2) Awkward cup holder placement under radio - it's a challenge to find a mug that fits nicely and not tall.
3) Front window is huge and sun strikes right thru it on a sunny day. I think VW should tint upper part of the window.
Hmm...Can't think of anything else :-)

VW Dealers are very strange and differ a lot. In our case they were friendly enough except at the end they tried to give us papers for another car (read all papers, folks) and we ended up with user manual for VW Beetle Convertible 2004 in our glove compartment...

Conclusion: I'd definitely recommend this car as it's very solid, fun to drive and inexpensive car.
Amount Paid (US$): 12500
Condition: New
Model Year: 2003
Model and Options: Manual GL 2.0 115Hp