Hank Cooper

Hank Cooper is the main protagonist in the 1997 remake of The Love Bug. He's a mechanic who was portrayed by actor Bruce Campbell.

Background
In the film, Hank use to be a race driver but his bad luck with every car he drove ended his career and got a job as a mechanic at Chuck's Garage.

His boss Chuck enters him in a contest where other mechanics from different garages challenge against one another to fix a car and race around a track and the winner is declared the best mechanic. When picking the cars, Hank chooses Herbie who was thrown out by his previous and cruel owner Simon Moore. After fixing up his engine, Hank prepares to race him but unfortunately he will not start. Suddenly just when a tow truck comes up from behind, Herbie springs to life and shows off his incredible speed to the audience and wins for Hank. Although victorious nobody seems to believe he was responsible for what Herbie did on the track.

During the early course of the film, like Jim Douglas he keeps Herbie but doesn't believe that he has a mind of his own while others do like his artistic friend Roddy Martel. He also becomes jealous when people become more into Herbie than him.

When Herbie goes out looking for him he finally comes to understand that he's alive and goes out to find him. Sadly he finds him all smashed up and left for dead.

At Herbie's funeral, Hank meets his previous own Jim Douglas and his creator Dr. Gustav Stumpfel who tell him they can rebuild him if they reshape his original parts. He spends day and night rebuilding his little friend non stop. He succeeds in bringing Herbie back but he is approached by Simon Moore who challenges him to a road race against both their little cars.

With Alex and Roddy as his co drivers, they race against the Scottish race driver and his evil bug Horace and like in the original film comes in first and third place after the little car gets split in two.

Like in the original film, drives away Hank and Alex on a date and share a kiss.