Wheelie, an animated Volkswagen Beetle, followed in the sentient steps of Herbie the Love Bug, appearing in the NBC Saturday morning lineup in 1974. The little car was bright red and though he couldn't talk, Wheelie communicated with honks and by flashing words or symbols across his windshield.

A successful stunt car, Wheelie even had a girlfriend, Rota Ree, who usually caused Wheelie to display a heart symbol on his windshield. Rota Ree was a very fetching convertible, speeding around with a raised antenna.

The bad guys in the cartoon were the Chopper Bunch, four evil motorcycles who were jealous of Wheelie's success. Chopper was the leader of the bunch and had a spiked helmet for a head; Hi-Riser was the tallest bad guy but he lacked brains; Revs was a sputtering three-wheeled motorcycle; and Scrambles was a mini-bike always trying to catch with his no-good friends.

Wheelie kept outrunning and outsmarting the Chopper Bunch, sometimes with the help of two policemen: Captain Tough, a police cruiser, and Fishtail, a motorcycle (think CHiPs without the human riders).

Each episode was 30 minutes long and consisted of three six-minute segments but the concept failed to catch on and the series was cancelled after only a year.