Bailiff: All raise the roof. Honourable Judge James Tiberius Klein presiding.
Judge Klein: Be sweetened. As you know, I have been put in charge of all cases brought forth to this CCourt from now on. I have read the transcript of the previous day’s testimony, lackluster as it was. I hope you will bolster your case with more tangible evidence today, Mr Tatra. Please take it away. Now.
T87: Thank you, your Jimness. If it doesn’t harm the CCourt’s eyes too much, I would like us to consider today’s witness as a rare and hard to find opportunity to delve into another side of the JDM retro craze. Please state your production year, make and model for the record.
Herbie: I was originally born as a 2002-2010 Nissan March (otherwise known as Micra) K12, but I now go by the name Herbie.
T87: Herbie? How very strange.
Herbie: Well, I was made to look like the famous film star.
[ Above: 21st century JDM Nissan “Herbie”; below: 1963 VW Type 1 as Herbie in The Love Bug (1968)
T87: Hmmm… A Nissan March made to look like a VW Type 1… how in the name of Ferdinand Porsche did this happen?
Herbie: Fiberglass, mostly. And Beetle taillights.
T87: So you’re also a victim of the kit-makers we heard of yesterday?
Herbie: No, no. My fiberglass parts were fitted to my body with a great deal more care and consideration than that poor French Bus.
T87: Is that so? Please explain.
Herbie: I was hand-made and finished by a small dedicated team of enthusiasts at a small works in Niigata called Goodwood Park. They came up with the design and only do the work themselves. They are basically like an old-fashioned coachbuilder.
T87: So you’re unique?
Herbie: No, I’m not a one-off. I’m a proprietary design made by a single artesan and fully customized to the client’s specifications, both inside and out. As a high-quality bespoke vehicle, very few units are made – a handful per month at best. Think Aston Martin Zagato or Citroën DS Chapron.
T87: All I’m thinking right now is Mitsuoka…
Herbie: No, They have a whole range. Mistuoka are large-scale compared to Goodwood Park.
T87: I’m detecting a certain level of smugness beneath your rounded exterior.
Herbie: I’m sorry, was that a question?
T87: More of a rhetorical device to rile you up, but you seem unflappable. You want a question, then answer me this: Have you ever heard of the concept of intellectual propriety? Because I’m sure the folks over at Disney have.
Herbie: I’m an homage, a tip of the hat. I’m not pretending to be a cream-coloured Beetle with the number 53. And I think you’ll find that the name “Herbie” is not under any sort of copyright.
T87: Well, you’re technically correct, which we lawyers always say is the best kind of correct. What about Volkswagen?
Herbie: I make no claims on being a Volkswagen or using their logo, unlike some retro kit vans I could mention. Nor do I use my diminutive frame to ape a much larger and prestigious automobile, like Mitsuoka do with their Viewt. The utter disrespect these retro vehicles display to their sources of inspiration is nothing short of scandalous. It is they who should be in the dock today, not I.
Judge Klein: Now, Herbie-san, please refrain from using your witness stand as a bully pulpit. The vehicles you mentioned have been heard. You’re out of order.
Herbie: Out of order? YOU’RE out of order! This whole re-trial is out of order!
Judge Klein: That’s it! Enough of your lip. Any more out of you and I’ll give you a Fine Of A Lifetime for contempt.
Herbie: Ooh I’m scared! You think you’re better than me? I’m too exclusive to appear on your two-bit CCourt full of Camrys and US-market minivans!
Judge Klein: That’s ten days impoundment for you, then. Bailiffs! Please drive Herbie out of this CCourtroom. Mr Tatra, do you have anything to add before we adjourn?
T87: Thank you, your Beatitude. Well, that’s the craziest thing I’ve seen in a while. A common Nissan March thinking it became some sort of custom-built movie star just because it had a bit of glass-reinforced plastic surgery. Some cars really have deep personality issues. Perhaps some of that could be attributed to these aftermarket kits and customizers, but as we will see tomorrow, big-time carmakers are also guilty of some serious retro-related offences.
Related posts:
The (First) Japanese Retro Trial (Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3), by T87
Ok, I love weird cars. It’s certainly an improvement over a brougham.
Just the same, it’s definitely the least successful retro mobile to grace these pages yet. And what’s with the headlight lids? They’re everywhere. I had to remove them from my Electra Glide when I got it.
Well, T87, you’ve pretty much captured the real Jim Klein. Good job.
I have to agree with Syke – this isn’t a successful look. The Nissan has too many hard points conflicting with any type of Beetle shape. It’s about as Beetle-esque in appearance as a ’71 Ford LTD.
My first thought on seeing the front was Fiat 500, not Beetle.
Kids, just say No.
YES THIS.
FIAT 500 was the first thing that popped into my mind as well.
I agree with Syke and Jason above that that as a tribute, this design doesn’t appear entirely tributary. Aside from the tail lights, I would be hard pressed to ID this as a VW copy. But I guess that doesn’t matter much. And these oddball tributes are growing on me. Sort of.
I love this series, and I also love the links to the coachbuilders. This one, Goodwood Park, is particularly amusing given that its website and logo prominently display the Union Jack… yet its two featured products, Herbie (a German car and a character from an American movie) and the “Baffetto” (a head-scratching tribute to a Renault Kangoo) aren’t British. But I guess its the association with old-timey British coachbuilders that they’re going after.
Very odd indeed. I think it looks more like a Renault 4CV than a VW.
The headlight lids make sense though, it’s a nod to beetle overaccessorizaion. Really this thing should have a teak roof rack with a surfboard and a cooler in it, just like all VWs did back in the 60’s 🙁
This would have more success as a VW Type 3 Fastback or, perhaps but less so to me, a Type 3 Squareback than as a Type 1 Beetle tribute.
This is what the Type 4 four-door would have looked like if VW had been continuing with the bug aesthetic. Who knows, VW might have sold more of them this way.
Herbie? It would have been more effective if the color were the same off-white as the movie star, and they had added the racing stripe.
As it sits it looks quite a bit like bloated Subaru 360 but without the (fake) air vents in the trunk lid.
When one looks at an unmolested Nissan March, you can see the shape of a Beetle in the profile, if one squints right and has a good imagination. I can see where Goodwood would have got the idea. The problem is in the adaptation of the idea into an actual product. What the artist may have seen in his mind’s eye just did not come out in the execution.
The thing I notice most about retro styling is whether something is a bad copy of an original or really a good interpretation of what the original was all about. A good copy is often a replica, a bad copy is just bad. The problem is that the artist’s concept may or may not work on the public at large.
Take a Factory5 Cobra as an example. This is just a copy, albeit possibly better than the original due to updates to the driveline. People love it, but no one comments on the design. The PT Cruiser was a copy of a 1939 Ford, which is really comical to think about, but it worked. It was one of the first successful “retro” cars, even if it was a Mopar interpretation of an old Ford. The Mini is an interpretation of what the Austin Mini was, and it works. All these are various levels of a copy of the original, reinterpreted with a more modern feel. An old JCWhitney Rolls hood for a VW was a bad interpretation, but for some reason (probably irony more than anything), it worked at the time.
I guess I am late – I was preparing a defense and here you guys go and railroad this poor thing.
I was going to move for a change of venue – there is no way this poor car that is paying homage to VW would get a fair trial from someone named Klein, Niedermeyer or Shafer. I think we have to get a judge of another nationality, perhaps from England or Australia?
My mother is British, Shafer’s family is apparently of similar descent if he can be believed, and as far as Niedermeyer is concerned – Australia, Austria, what’s really the difference? When the hand gets stuck in the cookie jar, guilty is guilty, no matter what JP Cochrane may say.
My dear sirs, in some certain cases, it matters not which the country or progenitor of the prosecutor, or, ditto ditto of those who insist upon defending it, the case remains immune from reason, this being one indubitably one such.
I’m British, I’d have to agree with the judgement. It looks like what it is, a Nissan micra with some bits of plastic nailed on. The micra was too ubiquitous to not notice the unchanged (and 4 door) centre section of the car. I wouldn’t have guessed it was an homage to a VW from looking at it.
Kiwi judge here, and it looks like a Micra in a third world country that’s been crashed and repaired using Fiat Bambino and VW Beetle parts. It reminds me of a Mk II Ford Cortina I saw once in Fiji that was wearing early-70s Toyota Corolla front and rear ends. So the Micra? Guilt of being an abomination!
“Tiberius”, eh? I sort of liked yesterday’s offering, this one is a little more sketchy and just ends up looking odder than both melded cars objectively do by themselves. I can understand how it offends your sensibilities. Oy vey.
Oh, old T 87 old bean, you really should’ve called a chap or even a chapess in defence.
I mean, as you know, we’re all of the general opinion at The Club that that far-Eastern basis of this poor fellow – the Micron? Merkin?Micraphone? Loud hailer?,dash, I can’t recall – is often enough pilloried by the chaps hereabouts as a simulacrum of a troppo bug that has been rearwardly surprised by its unwanted mate and hence the expression on its fizgig.
Really not good form to exploit even him in his private fancy dressages, especially when you haven’t called for One Of Us to explain for the poor blighter (and whilst I remember, yes, your mother’s dress still fits me better than her).
Will admit to much mirthment at your dispatches from Far East CC, but also must insist you decease.
Yours,
Only Occasionally.
Or, desist, even.
Bloody spellchocker.
So just what is that bronze kei van behind it? I want one; a replacement for my xBox.
I was similarly distracted by the kei van – much more interesting than the face-lifted (?) March.
I believe it may be a Daihatsu Tanto.
Tennessee Steinmetz: “Herbie’s all right.”
Jim Douglas: “Who’s Herbie?”
Tennessee Steinmetz: “This little car. Named after my Uncle Herb. He used to box middleweight. Preliminary, mostly. Gradually, his nose got shaped more and more like to remind me of this little car.”