Ranking:12
Year of release: 1969.
The car: VW Beetle.
Why it’s special: Probably unique in that the car actually was the star – the producers looking to make a film version of Gordon Buford’s book Car, Boy, Girl held a casting session for a dozen different models, and the Beetle was chosen above less ‘lovable’ Volvos and Toyotas. The film, The Love Bug, was the first of five pictures starring car number 53.
Best bit: It’s so hard to pick one part from all the sickly-sweet sentimentality, implausible race-sequences and creaky old Disney effects, but the films do have a certain charm. Summed up by the character Tennessee Steinmetz, who creates the car: ‘He’s named after my Uncle Herb. He used to box middleweight. Gradually his nose got shaped more and more like the nose of this little car.’
Pub fact: Herbie was painted pearl white, but the car’s standard white interior was painted grey for the films so it wouldn’t reflect studio lights.
Plot overview: A Volkswagen Beetle who tends to make up his own mind, joins forces with race-car driver Jim Douglas, and despite the scrapes they get themselves into, it proves a wining combination.
For: ‘I have trouble with names and faces, but I never forget a car.’
Against: More dated than a 1968 calendar.
CAR verdict: Imagine it – a film in which the least wooden actor is actually a car.
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