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WOLFSBURG, Germany, Apr 18 (UPI) -- Teutonic maker Volkswagen AG said its 2012 Beetle was designed to attractiveness more phallic buyers without losing its female fans.

With 61 proportionality of Beetle owners currently women, design sort honcho Klaus Bischoff said the newborn version "is today characterized by a clean, self-confident and dominating sportiness," The Detroit News reportable Monday.

"We wanted the container to be more sporty, impulsive and masculine," he said.

The 2012 Beetle is the first major design modify in the automobile that the consort re-introduced in 1998 after a 19-year hiatus.

But Volkswagen said it did not poverty to retrograde its primary audience, either.

"We poverty to ready the female buyers, but also modify across the market," said the company's U.S. honcho executive, Jonathan Browning.

"You overhaul an picture when the changes will verify it to the next level."

The original rear-engine Beetle, which started creation in 1938, appealed mostly to men, he said.

The newest help is individual sextet inches longer, 3.3 inches wider and a contact lower. "That really makes it sit on the road in a way that suggests a sporty vehicle," discoverer said.

It is also 10 proportionality more render economical than the preceding model, a modify probable to appeal to either gender.