The Love Bug (1968)

Dir. Robert Stevenson | USA | 108 mins | cert U

Dean Jones may be in the driving seat as the struggling racing champ looking for glory but he's a merely a passenger as our four-wheeled hero revs up to take the chequered flag.

This Walt Disney comedy about Herbie, the iconic and much-loved Volkswagen Beetle with a mind - and life - of its own, was an enormous box-office hit for the studio and gave rise to three sequels. But none was as good as this extremely bright and funny romp, with breakneck direction from Robert Stevenson, laughs and spills galore and personable degrees of heroism and villainy from Dean Jones, Michele Lee, Buddy Hackett and David Tomlinson.