The Beetle stayed in production from the 1940's until 2003. It was the most basic transportation type car since the Ford Model T. The Beetle's saving grace was its simplicity and economy. It was stone reliable and was one of the first cars to achieve over 30mpg. The original Beetle had about 40HP the last ones off of the assembly line in Mexico had about 60 with modern emissions equipment.
VW kept it in production so long that it almost put them out of business. Basically they built it to death!
The modern Beetle has absolutely nothing in common with the original. It is based off of the FWD Jetta/Golf platform. It is purely a marketing ploy.