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He's Back

Herbie (all 38 of him) is fully loaded for latest movie run June 24

By Tom Janizewski

It’s been 25 years since Herbie raced his way across the silver screen before his new film, “Herbie Fully Loaded,” roared into theaters this year. Many movie stars these days resort to some pretty drastic things to reverse the signs of aging (some more successfully than others). But what does it take to prepare a certain lovable 42-year-old German movie star who, despite his age, insists on doing most of his own stunts?

When Walt Disney Pictures was faced with this challenge, its first move was to enlist the talents of Randy White, Disney picture car coordinator, and Brett Stach, movie car mechanic. White’s job as a car wrangler is to determine how many picture cars (cars that appear in films) are needed to make a film, while it’s Stach’s responsibility to build the cars and keep them running.

White’s first step when working on any film is to read the script to determine how many cars would be needed based on Herbie’s stunts. When the first four Herbie films were made, computer-generated special effects didn’t exist. If Herbie was to do a wheelie, or skip over a pond, effects teams had to figure out how to get a car to do it. Keeping with this tradition, White, Stach and director Angela Robinson decided that they wanted to use as few computer effects as possible, so a fair number of cars would be needed.

White and his team scoured the West Coast and the Southwest to locate early ’60s sunroof sedans that would easily pass for a ’63. Respecting the fact that air-cooled Beetles are collectable, many of the cars purchased were junk yard cars that were beyond a proper restoration, but with a lot of Bondo and some patience, the cars would hold up just fine for filming. Most of the cars located were sunroof models, however some cars had to be converted.

Around 24 Beetles were initially purchased. That number ultimately grew to 36 picture cars when additional stunts were added, and two more were built for promotional purposes for a total of 38 cars.

Each of the 38 cars falls into one of three categories of picture cars: hero car, process car and personality car. A hero car is a complete car that’s the prettiest of the bunch. These are used for wide exterior shots, or closeups where details of the car will be seen. Process cars are cars that are heavily modified to allow for easy mounting of cameras and lights. It is common to take a car that’s to be used in a film, remove everything in front of the windshield and attach a trailer tongue so the car can be towed as a trailer. These are used for closeup shots so the actors only need to focus on the lines in the script instead of the ones on the road. Personality cars are perhaps the most interesting — they’re the ones rigged to perform stunts. Of the 38 cars used, only one car was an original Herbie that producers borrowed from a collector in Ohio.

A challenge for the makers of the first four Herbie films was making the car appear to move without a driver. This was accomplished by hiding drivers in the back seat area, or by having them drive huddled on the floor of the car. This time around, radio control technology allowed cars to be driven with radios like giant R/C cars.

Because neither White nor Stach had little background working with Beetles, they consulted aftermarket VW experts and tested cars for months to get a feel for the cars and to determine the best engine, trans and suspension setups for each of Herbie’s incarnations.

In the new film, Herbie takes on a few different looks. The most radical is NASCAR Herbie, which proved to be the most challenging of the cars to build. The Herbie team first rented the small Irwindale Speedway in Irwindale, Calif., to test engine and trans combinations for NASCAR Herbie. They then rented the larger California Speedway for additional testing. Various engine and transmission combinations were tested. Only two engines were blown in the entire Herbie R&D stage! The racing engine that was finally chosen was a 2300cc engine sporting a pair of 48mm Weber carbs coupled to a racing transmission.
Last winter, NASCAR Herbie made a public appearance during warm-up laps before a nationally televised NASCAR race at the California Speedway. This would allow the director to get scenes with the stadium filled with people (the track was later rented by Disney for additional filming, which required White to replicate all the NASCAR cars that were at the race!). For Herbie to run on the track at a NASCAR event, Stach and his team of mechanics had to build a true NASCAR Herbie that had to pass tech as if it were really going to race.

Stach and his team of mechanics knew they would have to upgrade every aspect of the Beetle’s suspension, braking, steering and structural rigidity. An adjustable beam helped lower the front of the car as low as it would go to help lower the car’s center of gravity. NASCAR Herbie was built on a pan with independent rear suspension. Center-link steering provided more accurate steering, and the cars were equipped with full roll-cages and other NASCAR-mandated safety equipment.

All of the NASCAR cars’ brakes were upgraded to disc brakes. 13-inch aluminum wheels wrapped in Goodyear 23.5 x 9.5 x 13 racing slicks replaced Herbie’s usual widened stock VW wheels and tires. NASCAR Herbie cost a reported $75,000 ($20,000 spent just on the drivetrain). Three of them were built. A fourth NASCAR Herbie — a hero car — was built which was identical to the other three but with a standard 1600cc engine. This car was for Lindsay Lohan, Herbie’s co-star, to drive in scenes where a stunt-double couldn’t be used (White and his team gave Lohan a crash-course in driving a stick shift, and White reports that she did very well).

The finished NASCAR Herbies are fast — drivers got the cars up to 138 mph. The powertrains could have pushed Herbie even faster, but the car’s shape made it unstable at speeds any faster.

One of Herbie’s other guises in the film is that of a “Fast and the Furious” style street racer. Mechanically and visually closer to a stock ’63 Beetle, “Pimp Herbie” is packed with enough street-cool features to put any Honda Civic to shame. Like the NASCAR Herbies, the Pimp Herbie features a fiberglass hood, decklids, fenders and runningboard extensions. Pimp Herbie is decked out in pearlescent white paint and wide 15-inch chrome wheels sporting stock chrome VW hubcaps. Up front, Pimp Herbie rides on 205 65 R15 Goodyear NASCAR Eagle GT tires, with 235 60 R15s in back. Inside, racing style seats replace the standard seats, and the door panels feature color-coordinated red white and blue stripes.

A street car isn’t a street car without a massive sound system! Pimp Herbie’s back seat area is packed with amps, subwoofers and enough JVC speakers to fill two cars, but in the dash is his stock VW AM radio (a feature that White and Stach felt was important to retain)!

Six Pimp Herbies were built. Five of the cars were equipped with 2180cc engines. A hero pimp car was fitted with an 1835cc, and one process car was built to be pulled by a camera truck.
Herbie fans with an eye for detail know that the Love Bug changed a little bit from movie to movie. In the first film, Herbie sported off-white running board mats while they were black in subsequent films. He gained a lone driving light on his front bumper in “Herbie Rides Again” and “Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo.” In “Herbie Fully Loaded,” when Herbie looks most like he did in the first four films, several other new details are displayed. The outer glass lenses have been removed from the old-style headlight buckets, and eyebrows were added. White chose to omit the red, white and blue stripes from the sunroof material so that they wouldn’t have to get involved with painting the canvas to match the decals on the bodywork.

Owners of old Beetles know that people love the old cars, and the “Herbie Fully Loaded” crew quickly learned that people still remember and love Herbie.

The cars were transported four at a time on long flatbed trailers. On many occasions, the VWs arrived at the location with people following to see what was going on.

It’s hard to imagine, but when “Herbie Fully Loaded” was first pitched, producers thought Herbie should be a New Beetle. White and Stach were instrumental in persuading the producers that Herbie couldn’t be anything other than the world’s most famous 1963 sunroof sedan.

Thankfully they won that debate, and now two generations of Herbie fans have the chance to see Herbie (all 38 of them!) on the big screen.