I would like to know about how many Herbie replicas we have in Australia.
I know of 5 including mine, but I am curious to know how many there are here in Australia
There is a convention in Florida each year for all the herbies, real and replica and I am thinking of having a mini version of that sort of event in Australia if there are enough herbie fans interested, there is a registry of love bugs with 170 members, I know of at least 2 in Queens land that are not listed there as all herbie people are not necasarily internet users.
So if you know of a herbie that hasnt been mentioned post a note with a bit of info and a pic if you have one lets see what we can find out about those closet herbie fans and Herbie Replicas
Lets see now I know of

Tonys Herbie on the Gold Coast {MINE}
Richards Herbie in Melbourne
Josephs Herbie in Sydney
Norms Herbie in Brisbane
Rotary Herbie on the Gold Coast

So if you can add to this list without making it wildly inacurate please do.
Cheers Tony

theres a guy here in lismore that has a sort of herbie (its actually a superbug) does that count?
marcel

I think it would be rude to set a level of similarity to judge the herbies, people get offended fairly easy. just as long as people think herbie when they see it, after all some of the herbies I know have the stripes on the right hand side etc, People ask me "53? is that the number?"
like I would do all that work and then put some other number on the car.
Most people have not much of a clue really they think white beetle with stripe and number thats herbie.
So yep the one is lismore counts can you get a piccy?

hehe. glad to hear that herbies still running after that 'modification' at the last motorkhana at avalon. i'll ask one of my teaches at school who owns a 1600cc 74' superebug. bright pink. his bro builds custom cars. he might know of some.

zac

sorry i don't have a herbie, but this might be interesting to you, if you haven't already seen it.
http://www.clubvw.org.au/love_bug.htm 
enjoy

Nice link - I wrote that article !

There was a 1961 Beetle Appendix j race car in Sydney painted up like Herbie (not very accurately though) a few years ago. Alan Challice owned it - dunno if he still has it.

John Watt also painted his Superbug track race car with stripes and '53' numbers. Certainly no Herbie replica though.

Greater Union re-released Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo in Sydney in 1984, and I worked with them on the promotion. They rented a white '69 Beetle and imported an official set of '53 decals from Disney (not the remakes you have to buy today, these were the REAL thing). the stripes were done in blue and white electrical tape. The car had NSW 'HERBIE' plates and did the rounds of shopping centres and street parades for several months in 1984. After that the car was sold and, last I saw it in 1988, it had been painted pink and made into a chop top convertible.

The 4 feature films are being released soon as a dvd box set.
I read your article Phil, very interesting, I enjoyed it and didnt know about the music stuff.
Notice also that during the balancing act the cut door sports no numbers as that would draw attention to the fact that they cut the door down, and his number plate has moved on the front.
Now here something that puzzles me, Herbie is supposed to be a 63 model yet he sports a two square, two round corner sunroof right up till he has his stripes and then he miraclessly gets round corners on the back of his sunroof.
I might be wrong, {I often am} but didnt the 63 have 4 round corners on the sunroof and the earlier like 60 model had the earlier 2 square 2 round corner sunroof, I have found many herbie fans to be enthusiastic and adament even if not always correct, I believe disney claims herbie to be a 63 but I am not really convinced anyone at disney knows which end has the motor in it. For example how hard could it have been to get the decals to match from film to film especially the 97 tv movie, nothing screams dodgey movie like dodgey graphics and no attention to detail and a script that contradicts nearly every fact disney has proclaimed like they say herbie is a 63 model created 30 years ago, ??? that makes it 1993 not 97,
It claims that Herbies secret is the love spilt into the mix when they were making him yet in herbie rides again he calls every beetle in sanfransisco to help him and they all follow driving by themselves.
Any way Having been part of the film industry for a while now I know not to look too closely especially with kids movies like herbie. After all if you look closely at aliens the movie number 2 I think when the alian comes down the ramp out of the space ship you will find he is nothing more than a black garbage bag with a couple of coathangers moving it, and in the movie Independance day all the various aeroplanes that take off to attack the mother ship strangely turn into mig 29s and nothing else and in the scene where will smith out manouvers the alien fighter ship and causes it to crash, just as it impacts the ground you will notice that the plants are all small round peices of mattress sponge with bits picked out of them and painted green as part of the miniature shoot but miraclessly turn into spikey spifex type plants as soon as they switch to live action in the desert.
Like Austin powers said " isnt it amazing how the english countryside looks nothing like the roads in southern california? " I found that very amusing.

Any way I look forward to hearing about the different herbie replicas we have here in OZ.
Cheers Tony

I've seen one travelling on the Eastern Freeway out of town a couple of times, here in Melbourne

Have chased it a couple of times, thinking it might be Richard, so I could give him a wave. Driver very unresponsive

Exactly right Tony, it's amazing what you see when you look more closely at movies. Sometimes it spoils the experience, but sometimes it improves it!

I wanted to look really closely at the Love Bug movie, as I've loved it for many years, so that's why I wrote that article. Have a read of my close looks at the other three Herbie films too.

I'm not familiar with the exact specs of the corners of sunroofs on US Beetles, but it probably doesn't matter. Disney did cut and shut many bodies so who knows what year model most of them are.

I tend to use the first movie as the reference and compare the others to it. Herbie is supposed to be a '63 because the first time he appears (in Thorndyke's car showroom when Jim is in there), that's what he is. In Herbie Rides Again they often use big-window '65 or later VWs in certain scenes.

That 1997 TV movie was complete crap; there were so many mistakes in it it's hard to know where to start. I was going to write a similar article on that film, but I don't think I will; I prefer to ignore it.

here's my article on the BEST of the original Disney Herbies...as you can see, it's still a cut and shut!

http://www.clubvw.org.au/herbie_no%202.htm 

hi phil74camper,
great article, love it ,a friend of mine sent it to me as he knows i am looking at buying a vw..

Ok so heres the tally so far...
Tonys Herbie on the Gold Coast {MINE}
Richards Herbie in Melbourne
Josephs Herbie in Sydney
Norms Herbie in Brisbane
Rotary Herbie on the Gold Coast
Super bug herbie in lismore
Unclaimed herbie eastern freeway Melbourne.
Interesting stuff to me, I think the herbie that was last seen as pink can be counted as history, bit sad but as long as its loved.
Who knows of any more?:bounce

The Herbie that Jen has seen on the Eastern Freeway is a S Bug.
I spoke to him once, he said he hates VWs but he loves Movie cars. He is building a Ghost Busters car and than he said he wants to build a Knight rider car "KIT" the Trams am.

Thanks for filling me in:thumb

Now I can picture the driver more:alien

Well each to his own addiction:sandrine

[Edited on 30-5-2003 by jenz58]

Once my street/track car is on the road, I have been toying with the idea of painting it in Herbie colours, but with the numbers "69" and calling it "The Lust Bug" Just for a bit of fun before the real paint goes on. It's a super anyway, so would never be a replica, even if it'll go as well as Herbie did in the movies

I must admit If I can ever afford a delorean I will make a time machine for sure.:bounce

Probably turn for my 2 cents worth now.

There are 3 known Herbies racing around Vic at the moment. Theres mine, an Sbug and also a 64 hardtop bug. I haven't seen the 64 but I have heard its not a bad replica.

Theres also another 2 Herbies ( both Wrecks thanks to me ) down here as well but I wouldn't count on them hiting the road again.

good to see you ownin up to a bit of herbie murder, HerbDU.

There is also a 67 Baja in Croydon with Herbie stripes over the roof.

Yeah a poor immatation! hahahaha

Ok so heres the tally so far...
Tonys Herbie on the Gold Coast {MINE}
Richards Herbie in Melbourne
Josephs Herbie in Sydney
Norms Herbie in Brisbane
Rotary Herbie on the Gold Coast
Super bug herbie in lismore
Unclaimed herbie eastern freeway Melbourne.
a 64 hardtop in vic
a 67 baja herbie in Croydon
Interesting stuff to me,

Who knows of any more?