Dr.Gustav Stumpfell is a German engeneer. He employed by the German goverment to build a "People's Car". The result was the VW Bug. After WWII he flew to America where he was to make a living car (as the Americans thought his people's car was alive) While making the car a picture of his late wife fell into the mix for the metal. He belives the amount of love he had for her was transmogrified into the metal. Thus the car lived, it would come to be know as Herbie. However Herbie was hidden as he would be used for evil. Before sending Herbie to San Francisco to live normally Stumpfell left a note to Herbie under his hood to remind him of his creator. In 1997 Simon Moore III found the inscription and tricked Stumpfell into building Horace and was there when Herbie was re-born. Stumpfell aslo burned the instructions for making Herbie/Horace so there would'nt be another living car.
It is unknow if he built Giselle or the army of Beetles Herbie be-friended.