IN THIS FEATURE Father of car stars Garage full of personality Into an electronic age Will there be another star car?

Some, like the 1966 Batmobile - Lincoln's Futura concept fitted with bulletproof steel armour and an in-board rocket - were so wild and futuristic that they looked as if they'd flown in from outer space. Others were little more than stock production cars with fancy paint, fancier wheels and a few carefully chosen stickers. They all had one thing in common, though: personality.

That, and an ability to make an entrance. Visions of the bright orange 1969 Dodge Charger leaping across rivers and drifting its way through the dirt tracks of Hazzard County (in reality a Warner Bros set in Burbank, California) will stay with me and millions of others for a lifetime. Ditto the cheeky, almost preposterously cute 1963 VW Beetle that Disney paid George to knock up for original Herbie films.

So popular were some of George's cars that it wasn't uncommon for them to receive more fan mail than the actors. "At the end of the first series of Knight Rider, I remember David Hasselhof coming up to me and saying, "George. I never thought I'd end up playing second fiddle to a car,'" he tells me with a chuckle.