This guy was parked close to my house a few days ago. This is Herbie the bug - a famous car in movies in the 70's.
Thus far this summer I've spotted Herbie, the Mystery Machine and Ecto-1 . This got me thinking - why hasn't a Megamind fan with a passion for tricked out vehicles made the Invincible Car happen yet? If one exists I've never seen it. Come on car people - let's make this thing happen!
Volkswagen Beetle, 1963 AKA Herbie. The Love Bug movie of 1968 was the first appearance of Herbie, a sentient VW Beetle character that can drive itself and successfully race against far more powerful cars. Thus far there have been 6 movies featuring Herbie, most recently Herbie: Fully Loaded in 2005
This car has had me going down a rabbit hole trying to find out if it even exists. What I mean by that is there is no documentation that this race car ever raced or was even really built. Jean Pierre Beltoise is written in the window, and he was a famous French race driver. But this specific car Lothar/8 is not the one he won the championship in as far as I can tell.
Above are the only “real” pics of the car I could find based on the livery. The only other matches I could find after a lot of digging are of a model car:
1976 BMW CSL Championne Production. As far as I can tell it was a model car from the 70s sold in France.
When I saw this I got hopeful that it must have been based off a real car, possibly one that won a championship in 1976. So I looked into all the leagues that were around back then and there were CSL BMW race cars but none that matched the livery.
I knew that I had seen this car before though and then it hit me.
1977 “Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo”
So after scanning through all the race scenes I grabbed a couple screenshots of the mysterious Lothar/8 BMW. This one sports the number “8” where as the toy model was “20”.
Since this movie took place in Monte Carlo it is possible that the production company was just paying homage to a popular model car that was a tribute car? Although it is definitely not in many scenes and was not one of the main cars in the movie.
So now I have no idea what to think, the “real” photos of the car at the top of this post have no numbers on it making this even harder to solve.
If anyone has any insights to this phantom car I’d really like to solve this it’s driving my ocd mad. (Pun intended)
To be clear I’m trying to find out if this specific car with the livery Lothar/8 was ever a real race car or just a model tribute.
Ahahaha thank you, this is awesome! I've been excited to answer this all day. I'm assuming you're referring to this list, which is the drivers' song choices for the Bristol Motor Speedway Night Race. This happens every year at Bristol specifically and has been happening since 2009! Not relevant to the question, just a fun fact I wanted to share!
I mean the obvious choice would be Hey Jude by the Beatles. But I haven't decided whether or not they'd be canon within the Judeverse yet.
Other unserious picks would be Rhinestone Cowboy by Glen Campbell, as I consider that to be "her song." Corona by Minutemen, Free Bird by Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Good Ol' Boys by Waylon Jennings also come to mind. (Theme song for "Jackass" the tv show, obvious, theme song for "Dukes of Hazzard" the tv show. Do you see the theme haha)
Two things that are true about Jude Wilson is that she loves all her genres of country music and she loves Oklahoma. So the songs that I actually think she might pick are Tulsa Time by Don Williams—🎵 livin' on tulsa tiiimee, livin' on tulsa tiimee. well you know i've been through when i set my watch back to it, livin on tulsa timee 🎵—or East Bound and Down by Jerry Reed—🎵 east bound and dooown, loaded up and truckin' a-we gon do what they say caint be done. we've got a long way to go and a short time to get there, east bound and down watch ol' bandit run 🎵. The last one especially if I actually name her car "Bandit" but I haven't decided it yet. My Way by Frank Sinatra probably makes an appearance at some point in her career, but it's triggered by a specific event that I'm not ready to share yet 🤫
Of course, she loves other genres of music. But I have yet to decide the extent of government censorship in the Judeverse, so I don't know what she would be allowed to play yet.