The Love Bug (1997 film) The Love Bug (1997 film) The Love Bug is a 1997 American made-for-television comedy adventure film and a remake of the 1968 film of the same name produced by Walt Disney Television which premiered on ABC as part of "The Wonderful World of Disney" on November 30, 1997. The remake starred Bruce Campbell and included a special appearance by Dean Jones, star of the original "Love Bug", tying it to the previous films and introduced an evil black Volkswagen named Horace, "The Hate Bug", giving the film a much darker tone than the other "Herbie" films. It is the fifth
Volkswagen Beetle NSU-based and larger K70. None of these models, aimed at more upscale markets, achieved the level of success of the Beetle. The over-reliance on a single model, now in decline, meant that Volkswagen was in financial crisis by 1974. It needed German government funding to produce the Beetle's replacement. Production lines at Wolfsburg switched to the new water-cooled, front-engined, front-wheel-drive Golf designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro in 1974, sold in North America at the time as the "Rabbit". The Golf eventually became Volkswagen's most successful model since the Beetle. It was periodically redesigned over its lifetime, with only a few components