The Classic VW Beetle

So Mrs. Beetle Fan and I were in Deadwood, South Dakota last month for some business meetings.

If you ever get a chance to get out to the Black Hills of South Dakota - you will never regret it! Deadwood has been extensively restored from the mining/gambling town that it was in the 1800’s. It is an amazing little city, and the main street at night is beautiful.

So, we are walking back to our hotel (Four Aces Hampton, the softest beds in the Black Hills - no kidding), as we just had dinner at Jake’s, Kevin Costner’s restaurant in Deadwood. We walk past the Celebrity Hotel and Casino, and saw a few costumes from Hollywood movies, and did we get a surprise! For the next hour we walked around the casino taking pictures, and yelling for each other to look at the next item we found.

The real find was Nelson’s Garage: Car and Motorcycle Museum. Here’s what we saw:

Herbie, the Love Bug. From the original 70’s Disney movie, complete with the registration made out to Disney Studios! The Beetle is in pristine condition, gleaming under the museum lighting. If you look closely, you can see that the passenger seat faces the rear of the car, along with a steering wheel in the back row for the reverse driving scenes. No CGI back then!

A couple of other really great finds:
The Ferarri from the 80’s show, Magnum P.I. I grew up really loving this car, I had a large plastic version of this - but no Magnum “action figure” to ride in it.

Evil Knievel’s jump bike. If you weren’t aware, Evil didn’t use lightweight dirt bikes they use today, this is a Harley-Davidson, upon which Evil made all his jumps. This bike is from the Wembley, England jump, well, crash . . .

The 1969 Camaro from the movie 2Fast 2 Furious. Regardless of what you may think about the movie, the car is amazing. Enough to make even the most hardened collector swoon.

Some other exhibits that are a must-see:

• A Jeep from M.A.S.H.
• James Bond’s Aston Martin from The Living Daylights
• Peter Fonda’s Harley-Davidson from Easy Rider
• Ann Margret’s Harley
• Trans-Am from Smokey and the Bandit

Make sure that the Black Hills of South Dakota are in your travel plans. It’s an amazing part of the country and there is much more to do there than one could ever imagine. Be sure to enjoy a few nights in Deadwood and check out the cars at the Celebrity Hotel!