http://www.clubvw.org.au/herbie_no 2.htm
Herbie No. 2
It's not very difficult to make yourself a replica of Herbie the Love Bug, star of four Walt Disney films. Dozens and dozens exist all around the world, and there are probably three or four serious replicas running around in Australia. Get yourself an early '60s VW Beetle, paint it white, add a red and blue stripe and '53' numbers, and you're done.
The more serious replicas would be based on a 1963 US-spec cloth sunroof Beetle, as is the film car, with more detail paid to getting the stripes and '53' numbers looking right. But surely the ultimate would be to find a REAL Disney film car, rather than just make a replica, but they're pretty rare. Greg Carr of Florida, USA, owns not only a genuine Disney-built Herbie, but also the most special of all the existing Disney cars.
Greg used to own a US-spec '65 Herbie replica, and he went to some lengths to make his Herbie look like the real thing. Cloth sunroof conversion ('65s had steel sunroofs), narrower front blinkers, narrower rear number plate light, and the correct Disney stripes and '53' decals. Greg's replica was one of the best around and he travelled extensively in it, even to some of the places mentioned in the first film like the Yosemite Valley and Chinese Camp. The larger windows of the US '65 did look a bit out of place though, even though Disney themselves used some later VWs as well in the sequels.
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