Trama

Herbie, the Volkswagen Beetle with a mind of its own, is racing in the Monte Carlo Rally. Unbeknownst to Herbie's driver, thieves have hidden a stolen diamond in Herbie's gas tank, and are now trying to get it back.

Race car driver, Jim Douglas goes to Monte Carlo to enter his car, Herbie, in the Monte Carlo rally. When they get there, Herbie falls for another driver's car and Jim falls for the driver Diane, who thinks he's weird. But what they don't know is that a pair of thieves who stole a very valuable diamond, hid it in Herbie's gas tank. And the thieves try to get it back.—rcs0411@yahoo.com

Jim Douglas (Dean Jones) is a returning champion race car driver, joined by his somewhat cynical and eccentric riding mechanic Wheely Applegate (Don Knotts). Together with Herbie, the "Love Bug", a 1963 Volkswagen Beetle, they are participating in the fictional Trans-France Race, from Paris, France, to Monte Carlo, Monaco. According to dialogue, they hope to stage a racing comeback in the event.

For the Trans-France Race, Douglas and Herbie have three major opponents: Bruno Von Stickle (Eric Braeden): He is a dark-haired, mustached German driver with experience in the "European Racing Circuit". His car was a powerful Porsche 917 clone painted in the colors of the German national flag and bearing the number 17. In fact, as referred in the movie, the kit car he drives is a Lazer 917 GT coup with numerous components including the engine and chassis from the Beetle. Von Stickle is deemed to be a formidable contender prior to and during the race.

Claude Gilbert (Mike Kulcsar): Claude is a blond-haired-and, like Von Stickle, mustached-French driver of unknown discipline. Gilbert, known for wearing a full-faced crash helmet, was the driver of an equally power-hungry De Tomaso Pantera. Gilbert's car was black with white stripes and a number 66 on the hood and the sides. His dominance in the race seemed similar to that of Von Stickle, until he crashed in the later stages.

Diane Darcy (Julie Sommars): Diane Darcy is a very beautiful, if somewhat icy and feminist-minded, young American woman with strawberry blonde hair, and is the only female driver in the Trans-France Race. She initially hates Jim for apparently his, but what was actually Herbie's, knee-jerk behavior that ruined her chances of succeeding during the first qualifying rounds. This was because of Herbie sighting and falling in love at first sight with her race car.

Diane's car is a powder-blue 1976 Lancia Scorpion with yellow and white stripes, as well as a fancy dark blue or black numeral 7. As being a car with whom Herbie falls in love during the film (much as Jim seems to be attracted to Diane herself), Herbie's infatuation with Diane's Lancia results in his compromising his full original plan of winning the Trans-France Race, and turning against that same will of his partners, Jim and Wheely. However, Diane does not appear to believe in any cars that can be alive and have a mind of their own; thinking this was merely an excuse for what she believed as an act of possible misogyny or sexism from Jim. To this extent, she bluntly but sarcastically tells Jim that she would like nothing more than to see him and his car completely vanish.

Diane and her Lancia unfortunately crash into a lake towards the end of the race, and with victory in sight. But Herbie and Jim manage to save both car and woman from drowning. Because of this, she soon changes her attitude toward Jim after he saves her life, and she witnesses Herbie towing her Lancia out of the lake. All three watch as Herbie crawls next to the Lancia and the two cars hold doors like holding hands. When Herbie seems to have trouble restarting because of being determined to stay with the Lancia, Diane is now fully convinced that cars can have minds of their own because she now knows her own car is alive as well. She encourages the little car not to relent in the quest for victory in the Trans-France Race (with the added agreement of the Lancia's horn), and bids Jim good luck with a light kiss on one cheek.

With Diane now out of the race (followed shortly thereafter by Claude Gilbert in the aforementioned crash), Jim pursues Von Stickle through the streets of Monte Carlo, combatants in a thrilling duel for the win. In the end, though, Bruno Von Stickle is overtaken by the little car in the famous tunnel of the Formula One racetrack, Herbie outracing him by outsmarting him through driving upside down on the tunnel roof. Jim drives Herbie to victory for (also according to dialogue) the 20th time in their careers.

As the film progresses, two thieves, Max (Bernard Fox) and Quincey (Roy Kinnear), steal the famous Étoile De Joie (French for "Star of Joy") diamond and cleverly hide it in Herbie's fuel tank (Herbie was fitted with an external fuel filler cap for this film - a 1963 Beetle's cap actually being inside the front luggage compartment) in order to avoid being captured by a swarm of searching policemen. But little did they know that they picked the wrong car to hide it in, because of one car that was alive and had a mind of its own. That causes them to blow every chance they get in getting back the diamond they hid in him. Because of this, and on a count of an attempt where they at one point tried to threaten Jim and Wheely at gunpoint to relinquish the car to them, an encounter from which Herbie managed to escape, and thanks to a misunderstood conclusion thereafter that Diane would have tried to mastermind the whole event. Subsequently, Herbie is placed under the protection of the French police.

With a perfect opportunity of what it would mean for him, Inspector Bouchet volunteers completely to be the caretaker, but the impulsive and not punctual Detective Fontenoy squeezes in at the last moment taking over the caretaker business. The little car is therefore five minutes late in starting the Trans-France Race (this despite having won the pole in record time, and otherwise sharing the front row with his beloved Lancia). As a result of this, the Lancia tries to stay put at the starting line. Wheely tricks the Lancia to going ahead in the race, by lying that Herbie has abandoned her for another. After a convincing enough lie from him and with some help from Jim, she complies with going on just in time. On Herbie's part, when he is finally brought back in a small delay, he causes a longer delay by going on a search for the Lancia.

Wheely convinces Herbie to join the race by telling him the same kind of fast-talk lie that he told the Lancia, except he tells Herbie that she just went off into the race by abandoning him all together, without reason. After the Lancia gets into an accident, the truth comes out to Herbie thanks to Jim's selfless talk, forcing Wheely to have to confess and owe him a major apology.

It is also revealed not too far in that Inspector Bouchet (Jacques Marin), also known as "Double X" especially as a code name to the thieves, is the mastermind behind the museum robbery, though the fact of his scheme is revealed near the end of the movie. It is the eager, and somewhat knee-jerk and always tardy young detective Fontenoy (Xavier Saint-Macary), of whom the Inspector is the superior officer, who unravels the mystery of L'Étoile De Joie, and has Bouchet clapped in handcuffs. All the way through the plot, Inspector Bouchet appears to have an annoyance and sour attitude towards Detective Fontenoy. The reasons are never plain, but some of them could be due to things that the Inspector tells the Head Official of Monaco about the detective when he tries to persuade him to cancel out a diamond search that the detective ordered for.

In the end, Jim and Diane begin to fall in love, as do Wheely and the Monte Carlo trophy girl (Katia Tchenko); even breaking a pact they made in the beginning. Most of all, Herbie and Giselle (Diane's Lancia) fall in love again as well.