“I went for a ride in Herbie, the reaction while driving was surprising”

Who remembers the 1969 Hollywood blockbuster about the sentient car Herbie and his efforts to find love for the human driver Jim Douglas, played by Dean Jones? As Herbie turns 55, the Mirror tracked down superfan Luke Theochari, 65, who has kept the pricey engine going.

As we crawl through west London traffic, passers-by wave and beep right at me. Men in vans hang their heads out the window and people pull out their iPhones to record footage. But while I can feel my head swelling with self-importance, it’s not really me that’s looking at me—the car I’m in is a bona fide movie star.

This week The Mirror went for a ride in the real Herbie – one of the Volkswagen Beetles used in the 1969 film The Love Bug, about a sentient racing car who forms a bond with driver Jim Douglas, played by Dean Jones. It was built specifically for the film’s racing scenes, so it has an uprated Porsche 356 engine and loaded with performance upgrades, but remains superficially unaltered with the original red, white and blue stripes and number 53 on the doors and hood.

Driving the car is Herbie’s “friend” and proud owner, Luke Theochari, 65, from west London. We settle into the comfortable leather seats – a perfect fit, given my 6ft 1 stature – and as Herbie snuggles into Luke, he explains how he’s been enamored with the vehicle ever since he went to see the first of six Herbie movies at the local cinema.

“I went to see it with my cousin, I was only 10 at the time and I went to see it three times. I saw this car pulling wheels at the traffic lights and going out for the Hot Rod race. A few years later my uncle bought a new Beetle and they called that car Herbie I used to go around the house every Saturday and help him clean and do the washing and vacuuming and stuff and he was taking me home to Herbie. .”

By the time he was 21, Luke had saved up £450 for his first Beetle and was soon buying, repairing and selling cars. In 1986 he bought his garage in Ealing called Terry’s Beetles and since then he has been repairing vintage Volkswagens as well as sometimes driving the cars. However, even though Luke was always surrounded by Beetles, he never got Herbie out of his mind.

“In 2002 I planned to build my own Herbie,” he says. “So I started collecting parts when I bought the film board from the DVLA.” But a heart attack in 2005 put that plan aside and made him focus on what he really wanted—which was, of course, the real thing. “I did some homework and made a lot of phone calls. And I found the original car that was for sale in America through Volkswagen and got in touch with the owner.”

It took a year of back and forth emails as the owner wanted to make sure Herbie would go to the right buyer. Luke explains that he was able to secure the car in Florida by writing about the vehicle as if it were a person. “They asked me to describe how I would send Herbie to England,” he says. “And I said, ‘We should send him with no fuel in the gas tank, meaning no food in his stomach, in case he gets seasick on the way.’

In March 2007, Herbie was finally delivered to Luke, and when he saw the car for the first time, the hair on his arms stood up. “It was literally eye-catching,” he says. “He’s actually here and he’s the film machine. The most desirable Herbie of all. It’s wonderful.” Luke has enjoyed Herbie ever since and has even driven the car in Germany and around London with people honking and watching. “When I drive it around, people don’t know it’s the real car, they’re shocked and surprised, but I’ve had it for 17 years, so I’m used to it,” he says.

But for many people, seeing Herbie brightens their day, and after climbing through the hatch and waving like a delighted child, we park on a busy street in Ealing,

Michelle Hodnett, 58 and from Shropshire, drives the pram containing her 10-month-old granddaughter Evelyn to a stop to look at the car.

“It’s amazing,” she says, when she finds out it’s the real thing. “I loved Herbie when I was a kid. My brother and I watch the movies, we didn’t have a TV, actually we were very much about the country and the horses. So when we got the chance to see a movie in the cinema, it really made an impact. I watched all the Herbie movies. This just triggered a childhood memory of fun and the living talking machine. It was a big thing back then, but these days there are all kinds of special effects. I raised my daughters on those movies.”

Hendy Ryce, 61, a delivery driver for Parcel Force, is also excited to see the car in the flesh. “You see replicas, so if I were to walk past it I wouldn’t know it was the real thing. I remember watching the movies, about 20 years ago,” he says as he snaps a photo on his phone. Sarah Paynter, 65, also from London, agrees: “It’s lovely to see, especially today when the sun is out. I watched the movies, but it’s the car you remember most, not the plot.”

But Herbie fans are of all ages, not least because American actress Lindsay Lohan starred, of course, in the Herbie: Fully Loaded reboot in 2005. Actors Cameron Murray, 26, also from Cincinnati, Ohio, and Hannah Holmes, 25, Bendigo, Australia, has just graduated from the nearby Met Film School and points out Herbie from afar as they walk down the sidewalk.

Cameron says: “I remember the Lindsay Lohan version more because of my age. I think I saw the original at some point. I was walking down the street and I said, ‘Oh shoot, that’s the Herbie car!'” Hannah adds: “I recognized the car straight away. We’re actors, so I’m not so much into cars, I’m into movies.” Jacob Dawson, 22, a software developer from Ruislip, is baffled that the car is here. “I watched the movie when I was a kid. I’m surprised it’s not guarded by a bunch of guys with guns!”

Luke says this is a common reaction and many expect the car to be locked. Although Herbie is valuable, Luke is reluctant to say how much the VW cost him, but another model used in the fourth Herbie Goes Bananas film, which hit cinemas in 1980, fetched £80,000 at auction in 2015 . “I can’t place an auction. price on it because it’s not for sale. Even my wife didn’t know how much I paid,” he explains.

Luke’s wife Helen, who died in 2015 aged 49, was once crowned Miss VW in a beauty pageant. They met when she was a customer in the eighties, before he came to work at the garage. “She used to come down to this shop in the late ’80s and she used to buy parts for her Beetle.” The two had their first date in a green Beetle, sitting in the car and talking for hours.

Although Luke may have lost the love of his life, he finds comfort in his old friend and still watches old Herbie movies often. “If I haven’t seen anything on TV that I want to watch, I’ll think, ‘I haven’t seen Herbie in a week’ and I’ll stay,” he laughs. “The first year I had Herbie, in 2007, he was parked in the garage at the back of a garden. The doors were open to air it out and while the movie was playing I could see Herbie down in the garage. It was cool.”

“I’m really connected to the car,” Luke says as we arrive back at the garage after thanking Herbie for the ride. “I know when something is wrong and I know how to bring it in and fix it. It can’t be fixed, I have to give it a tickle every now and then.

“Sometimes dreams don’t come true, sometimes they do. This is a dream come true. I lived my life believing in Herbie and I still do. He is my partner.” And as I walk down the road, heading for the train home, I hear the sound of a horn. Maybe Herbie lets me know he agrees…

Luke’s love of his bug features in an ad for Volkswagen, which translates as ‘the people’s car’, as part of a new campaign – YourWagen – celebrating genuine VW fans.

The YourWagen platform features real-life stories from real Volkswagen owners and invites peers to reflect on what they might name their own Wagen.

To watch Luke and Herbie in the commercial, click here