VOLKSWAGEN BUGS ON PARADE

NOSTALGIA: Above, Karl and olga Magnusen, in their Volkswagen Beetle, will take part in the Orange Bowl Parade. At Right, Jolie McCurdy as Tweety Bird and Peter Vandervlugt will greet paradegoers.

The old lavender bug sometimes needs a push to get started, but if you were a 1959 vintage Volkswagen, you probably would, too.

Painted with daisies and rainbows from when ``he'' starred in University of Miami's 1997 production of ``Hair,'' Freddie has since participated in car shows for charity and on Sunday, will be escorting Tweety Bird as one of 18 vintage Volkswagens carrying cartoon characters at the Orange Bowl Parade.

``He's like Herbie's younger brother,'' said his pony-tailed owner, Peter Vandervlugt, who bought Freddie for his wife's birthday four years ago.

Vandervlugt and Freddie belong to a VW enthusiasts' group called the Palmetto Bugs.

This is their first year appearing in the Orange Bowl Parade, which has 21 new floats after 62 years.

``The Orange Bowl has been trying to reinvent itself, to do something different, so we're helping out. It's fun,'' said the gray-haired Karl Magnusen, a Florida International University business professor who will be driving the gleaming maroon VW Beetle he bought in 1970 - his first car - with Daffy Duck at his side.

Leading the lineup will be Bret Murdock and his Magic Bus, a 1968 ``shorty'' VW van painted yellow, orange and red. The bus is his own creation: it does wheelies, can turn on a dime and even squirts water from its side. ``The kids really love it,'' Murdock said. ``The last parade we were in, they chased us, asking us to do it again.''

REFLECTING: Karl Magnusen will drive one of the 18 vintage VW's carrying cartoon characters.

He bought the artificially shortened van for $500 four years ago and stripped it, adding a motor, AC, a flip-top stereo, seats and a table in the back. Extras include a footprint-shaped gas pedal and a small fifth wheel in back to facilitate stunts.

He's shown it off at road derbies and car shows in the past six months, earning him admiration as a kind of VW ``juvenile delinquent,'' Vandervlugt joked.

POP TOP: Bret Murdock pops a wheelie in his chopped-down 1968 Volkswagen van that he has customized to do tricks. The van will be part of the parade.

Murdock joined the group because he's buddies with one of the founders, Enrique Neufeld, a VW mechanic. The other founder, photographer Bill Steckley, chased down Magnusen and his wife, Olga, three years ago as they were driving the bug through Coconut Grove.

``You've got to enter that car in a show!'' shouted Steckley. They did.