The little car with a big heart.

As World War II ends, Volkswagen's Wolfsburg factory begins building the rounded little car that would become known around the world as the Beetle. Nobody yet suspects that one of them will someday have a personality.

The first Volkswagen Beetles arrive in the United States. Over the next two decades the quirky import becomes a fixture of American roads, and an unlikely symbol of fun.

Writer Gordon Buford pens a short story about a car with a mind of its own, inspired by memories of a Colorado farm where his parents treated their vehicles almost like horses. The story finds its way to Walt Disney Productions, which buys the rights.

Volkswagen builds the 1963 Beetle sedan, the model year that Herbie would represent on screen. Cars of this year could be ordered with a fabric ragtop sunroof, a detail Herbie wears in his first scenes.

Walt Disney passes away while The Love Bug is in development. The film becomes the last live-action Disney feature he had been involved with, arriving in theaters two years later.

Disney holds a casting call for about a dozen cars, and the pearl-white Volkswagen gets the part when crew members can't resist patting it. Producer Bill Walsh adds the red, white and blue stripes and the number 53.

Robert Stevenson's The Love Bug opens on Christmas Eve, starring Dean Jones, Michele Lee, David Tomlinson and Buddy Hackett. A plain little Beetle becomes an overnight movie star.

The film expands to theaters across the country and becomes one of the biggest hits of 1969. Its domestic gross of more than $51 million makes it, for a time, Disney's top earner after Mary Poppins.

Fans drive their own decorated Beetles to Disneyland to compete for a brand-new car, then parade from Main Street, U.S.A. toward It's a Small World. Dean Jones is on hand to hand over the winner's keys.

Herbie joins the touring arena spectacular Disney on Parade, which runs from 1969 to 1973. Sketches pair him with Goofy, and one season even gives him a pink Beetle sweetheart and a baby Bug.

Volkswagen's Beetle reaches its peak sales year, three years after The Love Bug. Rather than hurting the brand, the film seemed to help, and VW loosened its restrictions on how Disney could use its name.

The first sequel has its world premiere at the Odeon Leicester Square. Helen Hayes, Ken Berry and Stefanie Powers lead the cast, with Keenan Wynn as the villainous Alonzo Hawk.

American audiences watch Herbie defend a San Francisco firehouse with help from an army of Beetles. It is also the first film to call Herbie a Volkswagen out loud.

Disneyland stages another Beetle parade and contest, this time welcomed by Helen Hayes. The event is featured in a television special, Herbie Day at Disneyland.

Practice and qualifying scenes for Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo are shot at Laguna Seca in Monterey, California, with a grid of exotic European sports cars. The crew also films on location in Paris and along the route to Monaco.

Dean Jones returns as Jim Douglas, joined by Don Knotts, for a Paris-to-Monte Carlo race full of jewel thieves and romance. Herbie falls for a powder-blue Lancia named Giselle.

Herbie presses his tires into the cement forecourt of Mann's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, alongside Dean Jones, Don Knotts and Julie Sommars. Los Angeles declares it Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo Day.

The original film is released on VHS, letting families bring Herbie home for the first time. It would be reissued on tape many times over the next two decades.

Herbie sails south with new owners and befriends a young pickpocket named Paco in a hunt for Inca gold. More than twenty Beetles were used, and one prop car was lost to the sea for good.

Walt Disney's World on Ice debuts, and Herbie skates, or rather rolls, through the performances. The show evolves into the long-running Disney on Ice.

Dean Jones returns as Jim Douglas, now running a driving school, in a sitcom launched as a mid-season replacement. The premiere episode is Herbie the Matchmaker.

Calling Doctor Herbie closes the short run, a week after Jim and Susan's wedding in Herbie, the Best Man. It would be fifteen years before Herbie returned in a new production.

Herbie pops up in a spoof sketch on the revived Mickey Mouse Club. The skit's title swaps him out for a can of cream of mushroom soup.

Herbie, the Love Bug airs on TV Globo in Brazil, introducing Jim Douglas's driving-school adventures to a new audience more than a decade after the CBS run.

Bruce Campbell stars in a new TV movie for The Wonderful World of Disney, directed by Peyton Reed. It reveals Herbie's origin, introduces Horace the Hate Bug and brings Dean Jones back as Jim Douglas.

Herbie makes a cameo in The Simpsons episode Beyond Blunderdome, parked among famous vehicles in a movie car museum.

The original film makes its DVD debut. The other three theatrical classics follow, and later all four are packaged together as a four-movie collection.

Buddy Hackett, who played Tennessee Steinmetz, dies at 78. His comedy routines inspired Herbie's name, and his Tennessee was the first to see that the car had a soul.

Principal photography begins in Los Angeles under director Angela Robinson, with Lindsay Lohan starring. Shooting continues through November at California locations including Auto Club Speedway, Hansen Dam and the Disney studio lot in Burbank.

Filmmakers capture race footage at California Speedway during the Busch Series and Cup Series weekend of September 4 and 5. The action becomes the backdrop for Herbie's climactic Nextel Cup race.

Herbie: Fully Loaded has its premiere at a real race track. It is the first theatrical Herbie film in a quarter century.

Disney and Volkswagen of America send Herbie on a road trip from San Francisco to New York, with 25 VW dealership stops and pop-up car shows. The tour wraps on May 31.

Herbie appears in the halftime segment of Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt Show at the Disney parks. He holds the spot until 2011, when Lightning McQueen takes over.

Disney's Herbie: Fully Loaded, a racing game by Climax Handheld Games, arrives in North America the day before the film. Players take the wheel as Herbie in a series of races.

Lindsay Lohan, Michael Keaton and Matt Dillon star as Herbie races from a junkyard to NASCAR's victory lane. The film grosses more than $144 million worldwide, the biggest total in Herbie history.

Don Knotts, Herbie's jittery co-pilot Wheely Applegate in Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo, dies at 81.

Climax Handheld Games and Disney Interactive Studios release Herbie Rescue Rally for the Nintendo DS. IGN called it a good racer for a system short on solid racing titles.

A modified performance Herbie from Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo sells for $66,000 at Gooding & Company in Scottsdale. It is an early sign of how much collectors prize screen-used Beetles.

A 45th anniversary Blu-ray of The Love Bug is released as a Disney Movie Club exclusive.

A 1963 Beetle that starred in Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo and Herbie Goes Bananas sells for $126,500 at Barrett-Jackson's Palm Beach auction, a record for a VW Beetle.

Dean Jones, who played Jim Douglas in The Love Bug, Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo, the 1982 series and the 1997 TV movie, dies at 84. No actor is more closely tied to Herbie.

A Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo stunt car built for invisible-driver shots sells for $86,250 at Bonhams in New York in November. It had changed hands on eBay only a year earlier for $55,250.

The NASCAR hero car from Herbie: Fully Loaded sells for $72,000 at Mecum's Indianapolis auction in May. A Herbie from the 1997 TV movie sells at the same event for $55,000.

The stunt show at Disney's Hollywood Studios, where Herbie once performed, gives its final performance. Its land is later used for Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge.

Reports surface of a Disney XD series about a kid and a high-tech talking car named Herbie. The idea is later reworked into Fast Layne with no Herbie connection.

The same Monte Carlo and Bananas car sells again at Barrett-Jackson Palm Beach, this time for $128,700. It is once more crowned the world's most valuable Volkswagen Beetle.

The Love Bug turns 50, half a century after its Christmas Eve premiere. Herbie is still one of the most recognizable cars in movie history.