While VW Germany was reluctant to resurrect the Beetle, the Americans were all for it and designed the concept one as a show car for the 1994 Detroit Motorshow. If you thing it was pretty much like the final New Beetle you would be wrong. The concept 1 had all the curved of the final production car but was based on the Polo platform and was therefore a much smaller car.
Response was so overwhelming that production was assured, and the decision was made to base the production model on the Golf platform, the New Beetle was a concept that well and truly made it.
Source: www.ltv-vwc.org.uk