The last of the original design was stopped in 2003, it's the new one they're stopping production of.
Yes, and it was thanks to a British army officer Major Ivan Hirst, that the production of the Beetle re-commenced after WW2 when the British car industry had turned down an offer by the Americans for the VW production plant to be reassembled in England. The strange thing is that Hitler promoted the Beetle as the peoples / Volks car, with workers paying into a scheme to own one of these vehicles, as described here:
"Hitler's plan had been that the new car would be affordable to everyone, and introduced a form of part payment for them, not dissimilar to that of the “Green-Shield” system. Consumers would purchase a “Sparkarte” (a savings card) at a cost of 1 Reichsmark, the equivalent of about 30p, or around 40 US cents. Following the purchase of the Sparkarte, they were obliged to buy at least 5 Reichsmark of stamps per week, this worked out at roughly £1.35 or $2 USD. The average Germans salary at the time was around 32 Reichsmark a week. The sum total payable for the basic car was 990 Reichsmark.
".......
.but, by the start of the war in 1939 not one vehicle had been 'purchased' by any German worker, and only a few Beetles has actually been built, with military VW vehicles instead being constructed. The few Beetles that existed went into the ownership of the Nazi elite.
What a history that this wonderful car had, with a significant British contribution to it, and it is rather sad that even the new version is finally going out of production, but such is the march of technology!