My 2017 Volkswagen Beetle 1.8T Convertible: My Very Own Love Bug

When I started this Cars of a Lifetime series, I thought I knew exactly how it would end.

It was supposed to end with Papa’s 1988 Chevrolet S10. That made sense. After writing about all the cars that came and went through my life, ending with the little black pickup that had technically been my first car felt like the perfect full-circle moment. It was humble, useful, sentimental, and deeply tied to my family. In many ways, it still feels like the spiritual ending of the series. But then my mom went and ruined my perfectly planned finale, in the best possible way.

A few months ago, I wrote a post on Facebook about my 2012 Mini Cooper S Convertible and how therapeutic it had been during a very difficult season of life. My mom was texting me about it afterward, telling me how glad she was that I had it. I told her I loved the Mini, but that someday I would really love to have a Beetle convertible made to look like Herbie the Love Bug.

Longtime readers may remember that I almost bought a Volkswagen Beetle instead of my 2000 Jetta. They may also remember that I got to meet one of my childhood heroes, Herbie, at the Petersen Automotive Museum with my Papa. My love of Herbie was deeply ingrained in my childhood. If you asked people who knew me as a kid what I was interested in, they would probably remember two things: Volkswagen Beetles and Kirby vacuum cleaners. I have mostly grown out of the vacuum thing, although I will admit I am pretty obsessed with my RoboRock vacuum/mop combo robot. But my love of Beetles has always remained. I had just never been able to pull the trigger.

During that text conversation, I sent my mom a quick AI mockup of what a third-generation Beetle convertible might look like done up as Herbie. She asked a few casual questions in the way she often does, including whether I would want a newer Beetle like that instead of an actual vintage Beetle. I told her that while I loved vintage Beetles, and while one would obviously be more accurate, my current status as a husband, father of two, and sole income provider meant I would not feel comfortable driving one very much. Classic Beetles are charming, wonderful, iconic little cars. They also have a complete lack of modern safety equipment. A modern Beetle convertible, though? That felt different. It could have the spirit of Herbie without asking me to ignore every responsible adult thought in my head.

That was the end of the conversation on my end. I filed the idea away in the “someday” section of my brain, although I admit I browsed third-generation Beetle convertibles a few times afterward. Mostly, though, I forgot about it.

Then one day, while driving the Mini home, my phone rang. It was my mom. I answered through Bluetooth, but with the top down, I could barely hear her. She asked me to pull over because she needed to talk to me about my car. Very confused, I did.

She asked if I knew what had been going on with my convertible. I told her no, even more confused. That’s when she explained everything. My Facebook post about the Mini and the text conversation afterward had gotten her thinking. She remembered how much I had loved Herbie as a kid, and knowing the horrendous year I had just gone through, she decided she wanted to make that dream come true for me. Now.

For the previous couple of weeks, she had been working with Courtney, my dad, and my brother-in-law to find a third-generation Beetle convertible that could become a modern Herbie tribute. Her original plan was for the finished car to simply appear in my driveway as a complete surprise. That would have been incredible, but Courtney and my dad had concerns. To make the numbers work, the Mini would have to be sold, with the proceeds going toward the Beetle while my mom covered the rest. Since the Mini was my car, Courtney wasn’t comfortable authorizing that without me knowing. That was very Courtney—and absolutely the right call.

My dad’s concern was different. He knows me well enough to realize that if this was going to be my car, I’d want a say in which car. A third-generation Beetle convertible came with different engines, transmissions, tops, interiors, trims, and options, and he correctly suspected that, as a car guy, I’d enjoy making those decisions almost as much as getting the car. He convinced my mom to bring me into the surprise and let the search become part of the fun.

When she told me, I was floored. A few minutes earlier, I’d been driving home in my little Mini, thinking it was an ordinary day. Suddenly, I was sitting on the side of the road learning that my mom had secretly been trying to make one of my childhood dreams come true.

I tried several times to talk her out of it. “The Mini is perfectly fine. You don’t need to buy me a car.” She firmly disagreed. “I have the money, and I want to do this. Think of it as getting some of your inheritance early. And this way, I get to see you enjoy it.” Hard to argue with that. The search was on.

As it turned out, there were surprisingly few white third-generation Beetle convertibles for sale nationwide, much less near home in Oregon. My mom had already been negotiating on a 2014 Beetle convertible in Salem with the 2.5-liter five-cylinder. Without my input, she probably would have bought it. But it was expensive, needed a new soft top, had a tan top and interior, and the 2.5-liter engine. Reliable, certainly, but coming from a Cooper S, I suspected I’d find it slow, and its fuel economy wasn’t impressive either.

After considering the options, I decided the 1.8T was my sweet spot. It offered more power, better fuel economy, and a more modern driving experience without the complexity of the 2.0T. I would have preferred a manual, but I wanted Courtney to be able to drive it, too. An automatic was fine. I strongly preferred a black top and black interior, and for once in my car-buying life, I could afford to be patient.

For a while, the strongest contender was a 2014 1.8T at the Clackamas CarMax. It had the right colors, decent mileage, and a reasonable price, but the top looked questionable, it lacked push-button start, and it was stuck in “coming soon” status while CarMax waited on the title paperwork. I signed up for notifications and, because I am apparently very normal, set up a website tracker to check the listing constantly and text me the moment anything changed. Completely normal, casual car-shopping behavior.

A few days later, I unexpectedly found what looked like “the one” on Facebook Marketplace. I know. Facebook Marketplace can be a sketchy place to buy a car. But in this case, it was not some mysterious private seller with blurry nighttime photos and a title situation that sounded like a riddle. It was a dealer listing, and the car itself immediately caught my attention.

It was a 2017 Volkswagen Beetle Convertible with the 1.8T. The mileage was a little higher than I had hoped at 102,000 miles, but everything else looked right. It was white with a black top and black interior, exactly the color combination I wanted. Even better, because it was a 2017, it came standard with a backup camera and Apple CarPlay. I had assumed I would probably have to swap out the head unit on whatever Beetle I bought to get those features, but this one already had them built in. It also had the push-button start package, which I was very happy to see.

The pictures made it look exceptionally clean, and the top appeared to be in great condition. Still, 102,000 miles is 102,000 miles, and I did not want to get too excited too quickly. Then I looked at the CarFax.

It was a dream CarFax. One owner. Purchased new at Bud Clary Volkswagen in Auburn, Washington. Serviced by the book at that same dealership. Traded back in at that same dealership. It was exactly the kind of dealer service history you hope to find and almost never actually do.

We called the dealer, and they sent over more photos and videos. The car looked flawless. We negotiated a deal, and the next day, my dad drove me the four hours to Auburn to see it in person. The car was absolutely beautiful. It was exceptionally clean, and you could tell it had been meticulously loved and cared for. If someone had told me it had 15,000 miles on it instead of 102,000, I would have believed them. The interior was excellent, the top looked great, and the whole car had that feeling you get when a previous owner clearly cared.

Then I drove it. Compared with the Mini, the Beetle was a revelation. There were no squeaks, no rattles, and no feeling that the car had been living a hard life. It felt planted, smooth, and solid. It was not fun in the same turbocharged go-kart way the Mini was, but it was still peppy, cheerful, and wonderful with the top down. With the top up, it was in another world entirely: quieter, more comfortable, more composed, and much higher quality.

We went back to the dealership, finalized the deal, and I drove it the four hours home to Tillamook. It was flawless. Comfortable, smooth, happy on the highway, and it returned 34 MPG on the trip home.

When I got home, both of my boys were very excited to see it. I had only shown Wesley The Love Bug for the first time a few weeks earlier, and he had immediately become obsessed. The fact that we were going to have a Herbie of our own was extremely exciting to him. Since watching the movie, he had started asking almost everyone he met whether they had seen The Love Bug.

Jonah was even younger, so I did not expect him to really understand any of this. I do not remember specifically telling him the name Herbie, but I must have, or he must have picked it up from the movie. The day after I brought the Beetle home, I asked him what Dada’s new car was called, because I had told him it was a Beetle. He walked up to it in the garage, patted it on the headlight, and said, “Herbie!” in the most adorable 21-month-old voice imaginable.

Heart melted.

Now it was time to actually turn my Beetle into Herbie. Once again, I called on PSI, the local print shop that had done such a wonderful job reproducing and installing the stripes on Papa’s S10. Before meeting with them, I spent a probably unreasonable amount of time working with different AI image generators, trying to decide exactly what I wanted a modern interpretation of Herbie to look like.

And that was the key phrase: modern interpretation.

I had to make peace with that early, or I was going to drive myself crazy. This was not a 1963 Volkswagen Beetle sunroof sedan. It was a 2017 Beetle convertible, and trying to make it movie-exact would have been impossible. The goal was not to build a replica. The goal was to capture the spirit of Herbie in a way that fit the car I actually had.

I met with PSI, and they measured the Beetle, talked through the design, and eventually printed everything. About two weeks later, it was finally time to take the car in to be Herbie-ized. The night before felt like Christmas Eve. I could barely sleep. I was that excited.

I dropped the Beetle off, and they kept it for a good chunk of the day. When I went back to pick it up, I was over the moon. The stripes looked fantastic, the side roundels worked beautifully, and suddenly the car had gone from “nice white Beetle convertible” to something that made me smile before I even got in.

There was just one problem. The 53 on the hood was too small, and it was not quite centered. I did not really notice it much while I was there, probably because I was too excited and trying to take everything in. But once I got home and looked at it more carefully, I saw it immediately. The rest of the car looked so good that the hood number stood out even more, and it took some of the excitement out of the whole thing.

Then I had to decide whether I could live with it. I am not a person who enjoys conflict. At all. My natural instinct is to tell myself something is fine, avoid making a fuss, and then quietly let it bother me forever. But this was Herbie. If the hood number bothered me every time I looked at the car, it was going to sap some of the joy out of it. So I held my breath and sent PSI an email.

Their response was immediate, friendly, and incredibly helpful. As it turned out, they had not been completely happy with the hood number either, and they were more than willing to make it right. I brought the car back in, they installed a larger and better-centered 53, and suddenly everything clicked. With that final correction, my modern Herbie tribute was exactly what I had hoped it would be.

In the month or so since Herbie came home, I have already put more than 1,000 miles on it. It has become every bit as therapeutic as the Mini was, only quieter, smoother, and much easier to live with. It still gives me that same top-down release I had found in the Mini, but without the rattles, harshness, and general feeling that the car might be quietly plotting its next repair.

The kids absolutely love riding in it too. Better yet, it is actually big enough for all four of us, including Jonah’s enormous rear-facing car seat. Just today, after church, I used it to pick up a week’s worth of groceries for our family of four. On the drive home, Jonah fell asleep in the back seat with the top down, completely unbothered by the fact that he was riding home in Dada’s Herbie car.

This weekend, Courtney and I also took it up the coast toward the Cannon Beach area to celebrate our 12th wedding anniversary. Or at least, we tried to. Apparently, there was some event happening in or around Cannon Beach, because we spent more than half an hour slowly crawling through town, fruitlessly searching for a parking spot. That part was frustrating, but even then, Herbie made it hard to stay annoyed for long. As we crept through town, I probably heard more than a dozen people say some version of, “Look! It’s Herbie!” Every single time, it made me smile.

As a fairly introverted person, being able to express myself through a car like this is such a joy. I do not necessarily want to be the center of attention, but I love driving something that makes people happy. Herbie has always done that. He made people smile on screen when I was a kid, and now this modern little tribute does the same thing in real life.

That might be what I love most about it. It lets me relive a wonderful part of my childhood, but it also creates something new for my boys. Wesley and Jonah are growing up with Herbie in the garage, Herbie in the driveway, Herbie taking them on top-down rides, and Herbie making strangers smile wherever we go. Watching that love of Herbie ignite in them has been one of the most unexpected joys of this whole experience.

After all these years, I finally have my own Love Bug. And somehow, it feels even better than I imagined.

And with that, we reach the end of my Cars of a Lifetime series—at least for now.

Thank you all for walking down memory lane with me. Thank you for taking the time to read my stories, for sharing your own memories, and for leaving such great comments and feedback along the way. Over the course of 23 articles and 20 vehicles, this has become much more meaningful to me than I expected when I started.

I have enjoyed so many COAL series on this site over the years, and I feel genuinely honored to have been able to contribute my own.

So, what’s next for us? If I had to guess, sometime within the next year or so the MDX Sport Hybrid will probably be swapped for some kind of EV pickup as our family needs and adventures continue to change. If and when that happens, maybe I’ll come back with a COAL update.

Until next time!