Retro-inspired cars are everywhere these days with the likes of the Renault 5 and Renault 4, MINI Cooper, Ford Bronco and so many more bringing past icons back onto modern day roads. However, Volkswagen’s design boss is warning that people can get tired of retro cars very fast, and he’s speaking from experience.

Auto Express spoke to Andreas Mindt, head of design for both the Volkswagen brand and now the entire VW Group, ahead of the 2026 Paris Motor Show - the unofficial theme of which is reviving the icons of the past. The Citroen 2CV, Renault Espace, Peugeot 205 T16 and others have all been reimagined for the 21st Century by new cars at the show. 

When asked about his thoughts on this latest batch of retro revivals, Mindt said: “I don’t want to repeat a design over and over again, I think there’s a dead end to it.

“We had that with the new Beetle. You do one Beetle, then another and then people get tired. How can you succeed from there? There’s a stop somewhere when you go down this path. We did it already and we found it’s no good.”

By contrast, Volkswagen is now embracing its heritage but in a less obvious way, refocusing on the core values that fans loved about its most treasured models for. “Our three values are: stable, likeable and secret sauce,” Mindt explained. “You can apply this in the past, in the present and in the future as well, as these values are timeless.”

So while we don’t get the impression VW has any intention of making the next Golf look like the Mk1 from the seventies, or resurrecting the Beetle a second time, there are subtle yet important elements for its older cars that are being carried forward.