Herbie and the Thorndyke Special
10/28/2023
The movie "The Love Bug" or "Ein toller Käfer" made two cars famous or even more famous, the VW Beetle and the Apollo 3500 GT. In the movie it was a VW Beetle 1200 from 1960 in white and an Apollo 3500 GT from 1963 in yellow, which was the "Thorndyke Special", the most important opponent of Herbie, as the Beetle was called.
It looked something like this in the supporting movie:
Since then, hardly anyone is likely to have seen the two main characters together again, but at the classic car show Auto e Moto d'Epoca, they are back on the starting grid side by side, and the fact that the Beetle misses its vintage by a year and that the Thorndyke Special is an Apollo 3500 GT from 1967 instead of 1963, the first to be built by Vanguard, does not detract from the joy of movie fans.
In any case, both cars look pretty authentic, the color schemes and the presentation are just right. A beautiful arrangement.
And if you walk one hall further, you can also find "Herbie" as a "Rat Car", built in 1967. After all, Herbie looked something like this in some of the film scenes in which he had to starve.
By the way, Auto e Moto d'Epoca 2023 is still open to the public until Sunday, October 29, 2023. We will soon be publishing a detailed and, as always, illustrated review.
