The New Significance Of Herbie’s Number: Cold Start

Cs 53 Herbie1
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My birthday happened over the weekend, and somehow my age is now the same as the racing number of the most famous sentient Volkswagen in Western letters: 53. How did this happen? I don’t feel like whatever vague concept I have of a 53-year old man in my head. In fact, while doing some member drawings the other night, I had that Batman Begins movie on, and in part of the dialog they state that a particular character was 52 years old. This guy right here. That’s 52? Man, Gotham is some hard living, that’s for sure. I looked it up, and that actor would have been 57 at the time, so they are taking some liberties. Still, my basic point still stands: how am I 53? How do I reconcile that with the sort of barely-adult-dipshit that seems to live inside this body? I’m not sure I can, so instead we may as well talk about the car with the number 53, Herbie the Love Bug and the movie that made him famous, Disney’s 1969 classic, The Love Bug.

I’ve written about the impact of this movie before, and how it’s really a great car-lovers’ movie and, while definitely a product of its time, managed somehow to be a bit less reprehensible in re-watching decades later than many of its contemporaries. For example, the main female lead is portrayed as someone independent and a skilled mechanic, and while she does get objectified every now and then, is an actual character with valuable things to add to the movie. There are asian characters portrayed in some stereotypical ways, but it’s somehow a bit more respectful than you may expect and they’re played by real asians and not, say, by Mickey Rooney in a wildly offensive caricature as seen in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, a movie released just eight years before it.

It’s got some dark stuff in there, too. At one point Herbie, feeling slighted and rejected, smashes up another car (a Lamborghini 400GT that magically becomes a very smashed Jaguar E-Type) and then attempts to commit suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate bridge, until he’s stopped by his driver, Jim Douglas:

That’s dark. What other Disney movies have the main non-human character attempting suicide?

Most of the movie, though, is much more upbeat, with lots of great footage of ’60s-era SCCA-type racing on all kinds of legendary tracks, all set to that music that might have been stolen:

That montage also has a very deep-cut inside joke in there; when they show the newspapers, one of the headlines notes that Herbie (the “Douglas Car”) has been disqualified from racing in the Indianapolis 500 because the VW’s intake manifold was too small:

Cs 53 Paper

This is an inside joke because

“… Andy Granatelli, president of STP, plays the race official, and the newspaper article saying Herbie wouldn’t run at Indy because his intake was too small was an inside joke, because the year before Granatelli was disqualified from Indy because his intake was too big.”

Also, and I’ve mentioned this before and happily bring it up any chance I get, The Love Bug contains one of the finest extended bear jokes in all of cinema:

It’s how the bear realizes they’re an out-of-control car and tries to wake Thorndyke (the driver of that Apollo GT and the main antagonist of the movie, played by the wonderfully despicable David Tomlinson) that really makes the scene, I think. Gold.

Thorndyke as a villain is a huge part of what makes it all work; he’s a caricature, sure, but a fun one, and at one point in the movie, just before doing something deeply unsportsmanlike and dangerous in a race, states that “there are times that I don’t like myself very much,” which strikes me as a remarkably raw and revealing statement for a Disney villain to make.

I’m told the number “53” was selected for Herbie because one of the producers was a fan of Don Drysdale, the baseball player who played for the Los Angeles Dodgers and wore that number. All I know is that now my age matches the number on that little car that was so influential for me as a kid getting into Volkswagens and cars in general.

Cs 53 Herbie2

Beau has in his collection one of the best original movie-used Herbies, one that was once fitted with a hotter engine (some used Porsche 356 engines) for the racing scenes, and I’d like to drive it and do a whole video about the car. Maybe I can do that this summer? I think it could be fun.

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Mercedes Streeter

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55 thoughts on “The New Significance Of Herbie’s Number: Cold Start”

  1. Best birthday line I ever heard came rather unintentionally this year. In my mom’s memory care unit, they were celebrating a fellow resident’s birthday. So I asked the usual:
    Me: “So how old are you?”
    Him: “Very”

    I’m going to use that one until the day I die. Hehe.

  2. Best birthday line I ever heard came rather unintentionally this year. In my mom’s memory care unit, they were celebrating a fellow resident’s birthday. So I asked the usual:
    Me: “So how old are you?”
    Him: “Very”

    I’m going to use that one until the day I die. Hehe.

  3. Happy Birthday!!

    The only thing I dreaded about turning 40 was concern about dealing with my office’s tradition of ‘decorating’ a person’s office with black crepe and tacky over-the-hill themed crap, or everyone dressing in black. Somehow, the people in charge or organizing such things completely missed my 40th birthday. No complaints here.

    1. My office did not. Came in to find my cubic hell plastered with pictures of every character Rob Schneider ever played. Every exposed surface other than the floor was completely covered.

      Deuce Bigalow and the seemingly blind-in-one-eye guy from 50 First Dates were over represented.

      Took me about 15 minutes to clear away enough just to be able to work, and probably another hour or so at the end of the day to take down the rest and peel up all the tape. Didn’t get much help with the clean up. They all kept saying “you can do it!”

  4. Happy Birthday!!

    The only thing I dreaded about turning 40 was concern about dealing with my office’s tradition of ‘decorating’ a person’s office with black crepe and tacky over-the-hill themed crap, or everyone dressing in black. Somehow, the people in charge or organizing such things completely missed my 40th birthday. No complaints here.

    1. My office did not. Came in to find my cubic hell plastered with pictures of every character Rob Schneider ever played. Every exposed surface other than the floor was completely covered.

      Deuce Bigalow and the seemingly blind-in-one-eye guy from 50 First Dates were over represented.

      Took me about 15 minutes to clear away enough just to be able to work, and probably another hour or so at the end of the day to take down the rest and peel up all the tape. Didn’t get much help with the clean up. They all kept saying “you can do it!”

  7. DUDE! This is your year of nirvana and enlightenment! As has been foretold, the meaning of life, the universe, and everything is 42, then you crank it up 11, and ascend to 53! HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Use your powers wisely.

  8. DUDE! This is your year of nirvana and enlightenment! As has been foretold, the meaning of life, the universe, and everything is 42, then you crank it up 11, and ascend to 53! HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Use your powers wisely.

  11. Happy birthday, Torch! I’m a bit further into my model run and wonder the same thing, and add to that wondering why I seem to have failed to gain any of the advantages that come with age. But really – who wants emotional and financial stability, anyway? Just because there’s a “k” in “401k” doesn’t make them punk.

  12. Happy birthday, Torch! I’m a bit further into my model run and wonder the same thing, and add to that wondering why I seem to have failed to gain any of the advantages that come with age. But really – who wants emotional and financial stability, anyway? Just because there’s a “k” in “401k” doesn’t make them punk.

  13. Happy Birthday Torch!
    Glad you hung on to see another year man.

    As an old fart here, some advice. Age is societies way of screwing with our brains.
    Don’t let it get you. The way to stay young is to be young in the mind. And a couple of daily bong hits also helps. And to do crazy shit every now and then.

    Yeah the Herbie movie was a trip. And so was Don Drysdale.

    A suicidal VW bug? Poor Herbie. I can think of a shitload of cars that need to die now.
    Looking at you Nissan…

  14. Happy Birthday Torch!
    Glad you hung on to see another year man.

    As an old fart here, some advice. Age is societies way of screwing with our brains.
    Don’t let it get you. The way to stay young is to be young in the mind. And a couple of daily bong hits also helps. And to do crazy shit every now and then.

    Yeah the Herbie movie was a trip. And so was Don Drysdale.

    A suicidal VW bug? Poor Herbie. I can think of a shitload of cars that need to die now.
    Looking at you Nissan…

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