A very ordinary 63 Beetle with 1.2 liters displacement and 25 kW (34 hp). Strikingly the start number '53' on the doors and the hood. If you know how attached the Americans are to some athletes, the number probably came from a famous baseball player rather than from Count Berghe von Trips' first car driven in races.

So it was relatively easy to turn such a Beetle into a Herbie. As you can see in our picture above, the first Herbie was no longer imitated, but a later one, also recognizable by the VW emblem that the first did not wear. After all, in addition to the red and blue stripes, it also had the white flashing lights.

Inside, however, it is said to have been designed in gray instead of white, presumably to avoid reflections. However, if you think that was all that had happened to it in terms of change, you should look at the point in the film where the rear of the completely severed car was preparing to overtake the front. Disney may also have set up a repair budget to get the car back in shape after some strains.

Volkswagen of America is said to have helped with spare parts at some point. Rightly, because the fuss created by the four movies and the five-part television series had certainly given the audience, who was already used to innovative advertising from VW, a lot of joy and was probably helpful for the sale of the not very American car.

But the greater the difference to Herbie's behavior on the big screen. Here it not only scared away cars that were actually much faster, but also developed a character in contrast to this. You could set the clock according to the fact that as soon as any wrong action became visible in the film, Herbie reacted somehow. As revenge, it used, for example, its oil supply, which was actually not that large, with which it splashed around the area in an not environmentally friendly manner.

Conversely, it did not shy away from unfair actions in races by taking short cuts that, at least in the film, did no harm to its ability to drive. It is probably typical for Disney that kitsch was not neglected even with such a project. Already in the first film it had to be saved from jumping off the Golden Gate out of grief.