Dr. Gustav Stumpfel

Dr. Gustav Stumpful is a German engineer who appeared in the 1997 The Love Bug. He was responsible for both the creation of the two little cars Herbie and Horace. He was portrayed by late actor Harold Gould.

Background
When he was young he designed and built cars that were simple to drive and easy to maintain, "People's Car" He and his fellow workers came to call them. Sometime after World War II U.S. Military heard about his work and insisted he came to discuss his work to them. It turned out that the U.S. Military believed that these People's Car were actually cars that were alive and they wanted such a car for themselves. Stumpful as a young man took them seriously and began work on building the car.

He spent years trying to find to make a living car possible and realised the design didn't matter only the metal it was made from was. He tried every known alloy he could find but all led to a deem failure until one day an accident happened. A precious photo of his loved one "Elsa" fell into his mixture. However that accident took a turn and Stumpful believed that the strong feeling he had for his loved one somehow transmogrified into the metal itself making it possible to create a living car, resulting in the birth of Herbie.

Unfortunately he was aware that the U.S. Military would plan to use the little car for evil so he decided to hide him. He told the Military he had failed and once they were convinced he snuck the little car out and set him free. He kept in touch after Herbie found a home and a racing career with Jim Douglas.

Thirty-four years later he was approached by former Formula One racing driver Simon Moore III to build another little car. Stumpful was reluctant to do so but he went ahead with it. He succeed in building another living car only this time to his horror his new creation had a vicious monstrous personality due to a photo which so much wrong. Stumpful insisted that they destroy it but Simon refused and named the new little car Horace. As for Stumpful he was cut loose since his work was done.

Stumpful came to Herbie's funeral with his former driver Jim Douglas and told Hank Cooper they could rebuild him only if they used all the original parts otherwise it would not be Herbie. Hank spent day and night rebuilding the little car resulting a huge success in the rebirth of Herbie.