Herbie
Famous Cars
The pearl white 1963 Volkswagen Beetle with the No. 53 and racing stripes, star of Disney's The Love Bug and its sequels.
Herbie is the Volkswagen Beetle with a mind of its own from Disney's The Love Bug, released on March 13, 1969. The car was a 1963 Volkswagen 1200 with a sunroof, painted pearl white, with red and blue racing stripes and the No. 53. Herbie came back in Herbie Rides Again (1974), Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1977), Herbie Goes Bananas (1980), a 1982 CBS series, a 1997 TV movie, and Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005).
How a Beetle got the part
Producer and writer Bill Walsh cast the car with an "auto audition." Walsh parked several small cars near the Disney studio commissary and watched what employees did as they walked to lunch. "But everybody who went by patted the Volkswagen," Walsh recalled. "They didn't pat the other cars."
Walsh picked the racing number too. A baseball fan, Walsh chose 53 because it was the number of Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Don Drysdale, according to D23, Disney's official fan club. The name came from a joke in Buddy Hackett's Las Vegas act about a ski instructor named Herbie.
The cars behind the character
Disney used 21 Beetles for The Love Bug, each set up for different stunts and effects. Some had a Volkswagen bus engine, and others got a Porsche engine that D23 says could do 90 mph in third gear and 115 in top, along with Porsche brakes, Koni shocks, and wide race tires.
Volkswagen didn't give permission for its logos to appear on the car at first. In every film and show after that, including the 2005 reboot, Herbie wears the VW badge. About 35 cars were built for Herbie: Fully Loaded, according to Volkswagen.
Where the cars are now
Screen-used Herbies are in several museums, including the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles and the Volo Museum in Illinois, where the car reacts when someone walks by. The Walt Disney Archives has shown the car from Herbie: Fully Loaded at D23 fan events.
They also come up at auction. In 2015, Barrett-Jackson sold an "oil squirting" Herbie for $126,500, the most ever paid for a Beetle at auction at the time. The same car sold again in 2018 for $128,700. Bonhams sold an "invisible driver" Herbie from Herbie Rides Again for $86,250 in 2015.
Sources
The audition, the 1200 sunroof model, No. 53, the name, the 21 cars, and the engines: D23. Release dates: D23. Pearl white, the stripes, and the logos: Volkswagen South Africa. The Volo Museum car and the 35 Fully Loaded cars: Volkswagen of America. The Petersen car: Design News. The Disney Archives car: D23. The 2015 and 2018 sales: Barrett-Jackson and Barrett-Jackson. The invisible driver car: Bonhams.