He was a small little thing, but he had a lot of heart. His name was Herbie the Love Bug.

In 1968, Disney continued its run of live-action family films about sports with The Love Bug (G), starting a new series that is still known today with its many sequels. At this time, however, there was only one Bug—a Volkswagen who was conveniently anything but one. In the film, racing driver Jim Douglas (Dean Jones) seeks a new car after another crash during demolition derby. After a difficult discussion with a dreadful car dealer, Jim wakes up the next morning to find the small Bug which he defended in the showroom now outside his window. Attempting to return the car, he finds the car has a mind of its own, locking doors and speeding without anybody at the wheel. Giving up and agreeing with the car about its new owner, Jim decides to clean the car up and race it. Meanwhile, his friend Tennessee (Buddy Hackett) has realized the car’s personality and named it Herbie.

Herbie certainly has a mind of his own, especially when he discovers Jim attempting to trade him off for newer muscle cars. This is also made worse when the dealer, Thorndyke (David Tomlinson), makes a bet with Douglas that he would get the Bug back if he won against Douglas in the next race, knowing the power it has. Angered by this bet, Thorndyke’s assistant (Michelle Lee) quits her job at the dealership and joins Jim and Tennessee in the race of a lifetime.

This was the first of four original Disney Love Bug movies, a short-lived prime-time TV show, along with a TV movie in 1997 and another remake with Lindsay Lohan in 2005. Number 53 made plenty of rounds through 1980, despite having no relation to Volkswagen. According to IMDb, the studio held a casting call for cars, proposing everything from a Toyota to a Volvo, but eventually decided on the Volkswagen. Unfortunately, Volkswagen refused to give the rights to use their name in the movie. In turn, Disney continued with the movie using the Beetle, ridding the car of all VW logos.

My family has collected Volkswagens for quite some time since my childhood, and I was often known as “the kid whose dad has all the hippie vans.” We traveled to many VW car shows and swap meets where I got many photos of cars I would ultimately see at the next show, but always thought they were cool at that moment. One of the best photo shoots I had though was at a show in Toledo as a teenager.

Of course, this was not one of the original cars used in the movies, instead a showman’s refinish of a Beetle of the same year. Being such a superb creation however, I felt cool next to the car. Despite the many remakes the original movie has had, and the strange additions that have been chosen (again, Lindsay Lohan and a strange Herbie/New Beetle surgery), The Love Bug will always be my favorite. After two weeks of movies about AI-gone wrong, here is a movie where AI has done nothing but do right.