This is simple, yet engaging.  “The Herbie Game” stems from The Love Bug, the 1968 Disney movie classic “starring the lovable little Volkswagen with a personality all its own”.

First, of course, you show your little ones what a classic Volkswagen Beetle looks like.

You may be surprised at how many are still around;  just the right amount, not too many, and not too few.  No new models – that’s cheating.

The first person to spot one calls out “Herbie” and it’s color, and receives one point.  The only other rules are that a white classic Volkswagen Bug is called “Herbie Goes Bananas”, and is worth two points, and that the crowning achievement of sitings is a classic Volkswagen Bug that is white AND has a white convertible top.  One of these is called “Herbie Goes Bananas Convertible”,  and is worth a whopping three points.  I always felt that a white convertible with a colored top should be worth something extra, but never managed a rule on this.  Half points could increase the math exercise if you think of it that way and want to make it more involved.

Play anytime you get in the car.  Play anytime you go on a road trip.  Keep score per trip.  Keep an ongoing score total.  Don’t keep score at all, just declare points.  Go crazy when you pass an old-school German auto repair shop.  Do it with toddlers.  Do it with grade schoolers.  Do it with boys.  Do it with girls.  Do it as a family.  Do it as a distraction.

It’s rather fun as it gathers creativity:  “Herbie at the Beach” (surfboard), and “Herbie on Acid” (maybe not a shout out), but “Herbie on Vacation” (luggage rack),

and of course, “Herbie Needs a Hospital”.

If you want to know some background:  Keith Seume’s book, The Beetle (1999) says “The Volkswagen Beetle remains the world’s most popular car. Against all odds, the pre-war design has survived for over fifty years to become the most successful car ever built, smashing the production record set by Ford’s legendary Model T by a huge margin.  That the Beetle continues to win new admirers is a testimony to the timelessness of the original Porsche-inspired concept.”.

“The story began back in a politically-unstable Germany of the 1930s, a country searching for an identity, a leader, a pride.  With the arrival in German politics of a new figurehead by the name of  [my Harry Potter reference now] He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, the scene was set for a major upheaval of all that had gone before.  The impact of World War I had cost Germany dear, an expenditure of effort from which it would take years to recover.  Gone, seemingly forever, were the days of an automobile industry dominated by luxury car manufacturers, for there was no longer a market for such vehicles.

The German people, suffering from the effects of a declining economy, simply could no longer afford to buy luxury goods, let alone luxury cars.  For the man in the street, daily life meant walking or cycling to work, earning just enough money to keep his family, but little more.  Some rode motorcycles, but few owned cars for they were too costly and, for most people, remained an unattainable dream.  [Harry Potter again]  You-Know-Who, however, had far grander plans for his countrymen than others before him.  He envisaged a German work-force which traveled everywhere by car, along specially-built freeways, or Autobahnen.  His vision of a car for the People – a Volksauto, in the popular parlance of the time – was met with a certain reticence by most people involved in the contemporary automobile industry.  After all, the likes of Horch, Adler and Daimler-Benz had each founded their reputations on grand luxury cars, not on low-cost four-seater economy vehicles.

Volkswagen Poster (1938)

Dr. Ferdinand Porsche was one of just a few people who saw the merits of You-Know-Who‘s vision as he, too, had been sketching ideas for a Volksauto while working with companies such as Zundapp and NSU.  You-Know-Who‘s proposals called for a car which could be sold for less than 1,000 Reichsmarks, a figure considered ludicrous by most industrialists, although few had the courage to take the Fuhrer to task on the matter.  For Porsche, the figure was both an absurdity and a challenge. [1,000 German reichsmarks in the 1930s would have been approximately $250  U.S. dollars.   With inflation, it would be approximately equivalent to $4,100  U.S. dollars today.]

With  He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named‘s support, Porsche’s project reached fruition as the KdF-Wagen, or Strength-Through-Joy Car, the name being taken from the Nazi KdF socialist movement.  An ingenious savings scheme was announced, whereby every worker could buy stamps, the value of which eventually added up to the cost of a new car – plus a few extras, such as compulsory insurance and delivery charges.

.Volkswagen Stamp (1938)

Several thousand people signed up to join the scheme but the outbreak of World War II brought about its downfall.  [My note here:  Approximately 347,000 German workers, including my relatives, who had been saving money for a car through this “Christmas Club” type of savings program, lost all of their money when it was taken by the government, who used it to finance armament.]

The story of the Volkswagen might have ended there, in 1939, but such was the soundness of Porsche’s design that the car rose, phoenix-like, from the ashes of the Wolfsburg factory where it was assembled.  The tale of its rebirth is one of the great legends of automobile history, the almost derelict factory being taken over by the British Army, which viewed it as a suitable location at which to repair worn-out military vehicles.  Only when some of the officers, principle among them Major Ivan Hirst of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, saw the potential offered by the Volkswagen, as it had become known, did production recommence.

By the time the factory was handed back to the German people in 1949, the Volkswagen had proved its worth…Sadly, Ferdinand Porsche himself was unable to witness the incredible success story which followed, a story which saw every sales and production record broken, worldwide.  In 1951, illness, largely brought on by a period of imprisonment in France, was to claim the life of the man without whom there would have been no Volkswagen.”

FYI:  – The very last Beetle to be built on German soil rolled off the line in 1980.  Volkswagen then turned towards production of the more modern water-cooled cars.

-Brazil and Mexico continued to produce the Beetle until the late 1990s. “These South American Beetles may not have quite the charm and simplicity – or, it can be argued, the build quality – of their German brethren, but they are Beetles through and through.”

-The “New Beetle” was launched at the Detriot Motor Show by Volkswagen in 1998.

Photo credits:  1959 Black Export Sedan, pictured in The Beetle by Keith Seume;  1938 Poster and Stamp from spartacus-educational.com; Herbie Goes Bananas Convertible photographed in Tempe, Arizona, and Herbie on Vacation photographed in Phoenix, Arizona, by the author of this article.