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This web site is being dedicated to my son and his most favorite car in the whole world, Herbie The Love Bug. Now, as most of you know, Herbie was first created by Walt Disney and appeared in his first full feature movie in 1968. There are many web sites that deal with the history of Herbie both old and new. The last page of this site will give you a listing of some of the sites you may want to visit.
However, this site mainly deals with my son Stephen and his car, a 1965 replica. Stephen is a 28 year old who was born with a disability that has left him with many characteristics of someone in their pre-teen years. However, he has been able to overcome many challenges including graduating from high school (at the age of 18) and holding the same part time job for over 8 years. He loves to travel, swim, scuba dive, play Nintendo, bowl and collect all kinds of miniature cars.. He lives at home with my wife and I and has his own private suite. One of the features of his room is a HO scale train set that runs completely around two adjoining rooms complete with highways, buildings, etc. One of his favorite past times is just spending time playing with his city and watching his Herbie movies…
In 1999, Stephen went into the hospital for a minor surgical procedure that unfortunately left him near death. The end result was that both of his legs and all ten fingers had to be amputated due to a loss of circulation while they tried to save his life.. Within 3 months of being released from the hospital, he was dancing the New Years in with a cute blond in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, and he hasn't looked back yet. Overall, he is a remarkable young man!
Now, for his car Herbie. Like I said earlier, the car is a 1965 Volkswagen, Type 1 sedan with sunroof. Although the original Herbie was a 1963, there is little difference in the two cars from the outside. The turn signals are slightly larger and are yellow vs. clear, and the rear tag light housing is bigger. Other than that, it's hard to tell them apart. In fact, Walt Disney used many different cars and various years in the multiple movies that they made. So we didn't feel too bad using this car as a starting point. We purchased the car in 1997 and have fixed it up slowly over the years. The latest work on the car was a complete restoration from the ground up. In addition, Stephen's Herbie actually has a brain that allows it to do a number of things on it's own such as opening and closing his own doors and hood, turning on and off the headlights, turn signals and wipers, and randomly letting people know he is there by squirting them with his window washer. His horn also sounds and he has both strobe lights and high density Halogen driving lights for night driving. On top of everything, he still has his original 40 HP engine and 6 volt electrical system.
Well that's enough for now. We will try to include more detail on the following pages. If anyone cares to comment or to drop either Stephen or I a line, please feel free to do so using the link at the bottom of the page.
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