– Queen of Hollywood –
While the bug was adored in Mexico, its charm won over Hollywood, where it was immortalized as “Herbie” in a Disney film series about the Number 53 race car with a big heart.
In 1980, the production took the Beetle to Mexico in “Herbie Goes Bananas,” in which the intelligent car faces off with a bull in an arena, dismantles a network of smugglers of Aztec artifacts and accelerates like a Formula 1 race car.
The films contributed to the Beetle’s worldwide popularity.
But after the era of the oil crisis, the Beetle began to lose its charm. It was suddenly seen as too polluting, too noisy and too uncomfortable.
Its backseat was too hard compared to newer vehicles. The passenger seat was often removed by taxi drivers. When the driver hit the brakes too hard, the passenger risked flying through the windshield.
Worse, in the late 1990s, criminals turned the Beetle into a trap for “express” kidnappings and robberies, transforming the “Love Bug” into a villainous vocho.
“The two-door system kept you blocked in the back of the vehicle,” said Sofia, a Mexico City resident who was the victim of one of these wild rides in 1994. “The driver would let his accomplices get in and they would take your money.”
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