2005 VW Beetle Convertible 4 seater Car Hire, Nelson

Rent a Cool Cute Convertible!

It’s classic, it’s retro, it’s modern. The new Beetle has all the character and none of the nasty, noisy and unreliable bits of the original. Our Bug looks just right in this particular colour called Mellow Yellow, (quite rightly), which perfectly sums up the cool, laid back vibe from driving this cool, cute convertible around in our stable, plentiful sunshine. It seats 4 adults with ease and cruises easy too with it’s economical but punchy 2.0 litre engine, with optional tiptronic sports mode on the automatic gearbox. Offering superb value for money, it even has a vase on the dash for your flower power man. 

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Underneath the lovely pastel curves are mostly the mechanics of a Volkswagen Golf, so it drives pretty darn well. Nimble sports car might be pushing it, although Clarkson rates it to a Golf GTi, but the 2.0 engine is pretty lusty pressing on and can more than cope with anything New Zealand roads can throw at it, jus’ fine man, especially if you chuck it into sports or manual tiptronic mode. It’s a smooth cruiser and top up the thickly insulated roof makes for a surprisingly quiet touring experience with masses of headroom roof up, (and even more down!). 

Not for shrinking violets and guys will need to be pretty secure, laid back dudes when they pull up top down beside any UTE drivers, but hey we know those are just jealous and probably insecure anyway. This convertible has great interior space, the fold down and forward front seats giving easy access for those getting into the rear. Roof up you’ll be as snug as, well, as a bug with a heated glass rear window, heated front seats and air conditioning. Putting the roof down is like the outcome, a gentle breeze, you just press a button to access the latch, give it a twist to unlatch it and then it’s all electric from there, taking only 10 seconds. It doesn’t consume any boot space when down, instead giving you a rear spoiler that its Porsche 911 ‘whale tale’ Turbo cousin, (distant), could only dream about. To raise, just hold the button the other way, give a good tug down and twist the handle to re-latch. Plus there’s a button to lower and raise all 4 windows at once.

This is a pretty modern German convertible built with VW Golf bits so reliability comes as standard, as does ABS, traction control and plenty of airbags. It’s regularly serviced and has to pass the Certificate of Fitness (CoF) test required for rental cars every 6 months. And despite the large fabric roof rear corners, your back is covered when reversing thanks to a reversing camera….or you could put the roof down in just 10 seconds to be extra sure…

Most aspects are in pretty darn good condition, and the fabric top is fully weatherproof. You get cool exterior colour panels around the inside of the car, and the chrome trim sparkles in the sunlight. You might get the odd glass rattle with windows up, roof down on bumpy roads, and the trim round the gear lever is the only bit that’s a little scratchy, but otherwise the very well preserved interior and two tone cloth makes it a tastefully chic and comfortable place to be. Check out the long list of luxury features in the purple tab above.

If there are only 2 of you, then not needing the rear seats gives a huge amount of luggage space there. The boot itself has a fair bit of space, but has a relatively small opening so it’s probably only soft luggage, large rucksacks or small cabin suitcases in there. See the Seating & Luggage purple tab above for exact dimensions.

We’ve selected the grooviest songs from the 60s for your hip trip, (road trip obviously)

• Drive My Car – The Beatles (or maybe ‘Hey Dude“….)
• My Cherie Amour – Stevie Wonder
• This Guy’s in Love With You – Herb Alpert

Now we acknowledge driving music is a very subjective thing, but clearly here, we’re right. So although the Beetle does come with a CD player, there’s no aux in or Bluetooth so you’ll need to hire our portable Bluetooth Speaker, download them onto your music machine, and enjoy!

Quite fast enough with a 2.0 litre engine.

“Great…..as in fantastic…it’s so lovable, it drives like a Golf GTI….”

Lara our dog pictured might say “Dig that cool woofless convertible vibe dude”….sorry she doesn’t come with the car but if you want to take her for a walk, be my guest. Hover over the picture to see the roof up profile.

Different strokes for different folks….

Do you want sensible things like comfort, luggage space, affordability (maybe)….

or more indulgent stuff like luxury, handling and powwwwerrrrr? (Oh yes!)

We think all our cars are totally brilliant, but here’s how this VW compares to our other cars on some key rental criteria.