If it's any consolation, my late uncle once had a 60s Karman Ghia that was pink. Of course, it had the cartoon Pink Panther painted on the back, smoking a cigarette with a holder.

I'm still waiting for VW to produce a Hello Kitty™ New Beetle. :)

I would totally buy that if it weren't for the Barbie thing. And a hello kitty car would be amazing. But over my dead body am I going to advertise their anorexic doll on my car, feck off.

Heh, I kinda like it. Barbie was always sort of empowering if you looked at her the right way. She had a career or twenty and her own life apart from Ken. She had an unrealistic body, but to me she was never supposed to be a real person and she didn't look enough like me that I'd aspire to be her when I grew up.

i kinda want it...

Y'know what's scary? My nine-year-old cousin has one of these. In miniature.

I actually nicknamed my car The Barbie Car because it's a Malibu.

Luckily, though, it's neither pink nor stereotypically girly.

Yeah, sure, so a Beetle comes with a stem vase for the dashboard, big deal. That's not a Barbie car! Whereas I drive a Miata. Sure, it's white, not Barbie pink (well-known physics fact: white cars go faster), but on the other hand it's got a bumper sticker which, so I've been told, some people find kind of ambiguous. Fortunately I am such a model of male self-confidence that I can drive it without a trace of embarassment!

I like the Beetle as long as
1) GUYS DON'T DRIVE IT

But when the market has unfettered leeway, the Amsterdam scenario is nearly impossible to sustain. Typically the pioneers discover an area, perhaps an old industrial site such as the Distillery in Toronto, a set of industrial streets like Tribeca in New York or streets near a university where many young hang out, such as Deptford High Street near Goldsmith’s College in London, famous for graduates like artist Damian Hurst. They try out a shop. It might succeed. The cafés come in. The word spreads. Alternatively, larger industrial structures are converted into artists’ studios or incubator units for young design companies. A gallery opens; there is a cultural venue which shows fringe material; the bar there becomes popular; a restaurant opens, then another; and the gentrification process begins as it spills into the surrounding area. Gentrification remains a double-edged sword. It is an essential process through which property values rise to make it worthwhile for investors to get involved. On the other hand, it can push out those who make the gentrification process possible in the first place.