(WXYZ) — Forget Herbie the Love Bug, meet Ernie Miyamoto and his bug, a 1972 Volkswagen Super Beetle.
“Original version of the car came from somewhere down in North Carolina,” said Miyamoto, 61, of Davisburg.
Watch the full piece on the Super Beetle in the video player below:
Miyamoto said this fun little ride has been in the family since 1985, when his dad had a vision.
“It was just a beat-up rust bucket. My dad was down there and said, 'hey, I can do something with this,'" said Miyamoto.
Naysayers only hit the gas on his will to find a way to transform this bug into a hot rod.
“A couple people told him that you couldn't do it because the way that the cars were built and yada, yada. My dad’s the kind of guy when you back him in the corner, he's coming out loaded,” he said.
The Beetle is fitted with a 572 big-block street engine with 620 horsepower.
“When you go somewhere, everybody's like, ‘wow, do you need this much?’ It's not a need, it's a want,” said Miyamoto.
With the hit of a button, a special lift takes up the front of the vehicle, showing off the goods inside.
“We hit the button and these people just go nuts. Because they don't expect it, you know?” said Miyamoto.
Sure, this bug may be unassuming at times, but that’s part of the fun.
“Once you start peeling it back... figuring out that it's not a stock one, it’s a novelty car,” he said, noting that the only part of the vehicle that is original Volkswagen is the outside shell of the body and a couple of pieces on the floor.
It’s a custom beauty with a little quirkiness—just the kind of ride that turns heads out on the road, and at events like the Woodward Dream Cruise.
“We take it to the dream cruise every year,” he said.“The best time that I have with the cars going down for dream because there's so many people … the crowd, you know, everybody's gonna see the car.”
Not to mention the other key feature of this ride.
“The wind-up key was more of a, it's a toy,” said Miyamoto.
It’s a toy that Miyamoto said he doesn’t plan to part with anytime soon.
“Everybody’s like, would you sell it? It's like, no, you can't sell it. It's part of the family,” he said.
And a visual representation of the Miyamoto family’s can-do attitude.
“When you build custom cars, you always have that little setback. You're going to run into a wall, going, 'man, this isn't going to work,'” said Miyamoto. “In our family, because I inherited it from my father, there isn't that wall, there's that challenge now. It's like, 'what are we gonna do to make this work?'”
