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Herbie rides again, and the New Beetle gets new life.

Just as sales seem to have have tanked for the delightful Volkswagen New Beetle — they’re off 20.6 percent for the year — the Disney Co. rolled out a revival of the late 1960s “Herbie, the Love Bug” movies for summer 2005.

The latest film, which debuted in late June, is called “Herbie: Fully Loaded.” In this film, Herbie becomes a NASCAR star. I’m assuming the little Bug must have something besides the original 36-horsepower, four-cylinder Beetle motor under its rear hood, or else it would have a hard time running against those V-8 stock cars.

Almost as though it were in conjunction with the release of the new movie about an old Beetle, though, Volkswagen has prepared an update of the New Beetle for model year 2006, and these freshened cars will go on sale in August.

Although they won’t quite be NASCAR material, the 2006 New Beetles get a new standard engine, a 2.5-liter inline five-cylinder that cranks out 150 horsepower. It replaces the 2.0-liter four-cylinder gasoline engine, with 115 horsepower, that has been the base powerplant since the New Beetle was introduced in 1998. The five-cylinder is also the base engine of the redesigned Jetta.

This new engine also replaces the 1.8-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine that was the New Beetle’s first engine-upgrade choice. Because that one also is rated at 150 horsepower, it doesn’t make sense to keep it when the new, normally aspirated five-cylinder will bring the same amount of power without the potential service problems presented by a turbocharger.

A five-speed manual gearbox will be standard, and a six-speed automatic will be optional. An additional upgrade, for extra money over the price of the automatic, will be the Tiptronic manual shifter for the automatic gearbox.

Electronic stability control is being added as standard equipment on all 2006 New Beetles.

Still available in the engine lineup for hatchback and convertible models will be the 1.9-liter turbodiesel engine, but also gone is the New Beetle S model with its high-output 1.8-liter turbocharged four-cylinder, which cranked out 180 horsepower and came only with a six-speed manual gearbox.

That model was introduced about three years ago to help bring more male buyers into the New Beetle fold. It seems that the New Beetle was getting a reputation as a “chick car,” and to counter that, VW introduced the more-manly S version with a rear wing and the more-powerful turbo engine. It didn’t sell all that well, however. I refuse to concede that the New Beetle is a chick car. I happen to be a big fan of the old and new Beetles, and I believe the shape of these cars is the most-recognized design of all time in the car business. The vehicles are timeless and genderless, and I hope they stay in the Volkswagen lineup forever.

For 2006, the styling changes for the New Beetle are more subtle than noticeable, but they “make the car look even classier,” Volkswagen of America spokesman Tony Fouladpoor said from the company’s Detroit-area headquarters.

“Of course, the biggest change is the 2.5-liter engine, but there are a lot of little exterior changes, and inside there are improvements such as new and better cupholders,” he said. “The cupholders are deeper and more usable — they’ll even hold the larger coffee mugs.”

Other changes, according to Volkswagen, include:

Restyled front and rear facias, fenders, and side sills.

Elongated and restyled head- and taillights.

The horizontal reverse lights are connected by a mesh grille.

A redesigned center console with those relocated larger cupholders.

Chrome trim around the air vents and instrument cluster.

A new instrument-cluster design.

Three new exterior colors: Shadow Blue, Gecko Green and Salsa Red. (Galactic Blue, Cyber Green, and Tornado Red have been discontinued, and Harvest Moon will now be available on the coupe.)

Leatherette seating trim now standard; leather is still optional.

16-inch alloy wheels are standard, and 17-inch alloys optional.

On the convertible, Fouladpoor said, the license-plate holder has been moved from in the middle of the bumper to a lower position, which “makes the vehicle look much classier.”

Volkswagen has seen sales of the New Beetle slide from a high of 83,434 in calendar year 1999 — the first full year of production — to just 42,157 during 2004. So far this year, through May, 14,271 have been sold, a 20.6 percent decrease from the same period last year. Sales are about evenly split between coupe and convertible models. The convertible was introduced in late 2002; its best year was 2003, in which 24,255 ragtops were sold vs. 32,716 coupes.

“We don’t advertise these cars at all,” Fouladpoor said. “In fact, I can’t even remember the last time we ran any advertising for them.”

That doesn’t mean the cars are on their way out. “We’ll have the New Beetle for a long time,” he said. “This car is the soul of Volkswagen.”

The company does hope that the new Herbie movie will renew interest in the New Beetle, even though Herbie is one of the old Beetles from the ’60s.

“We haven’t seen any bump in sales from the film yet, but it just opened,” Fouladpoor said.

To help celebrate the film and boost the New Beetle, VW has sponsored a couple of events in the past couple of months, including a coast-to-coast caravan of Beetles from California to the Atlantic Ocean in May, and a re-creation of the 1969 drive-in movie Beetlemania event that took place in Las Vegas when the original “Love Bug” film opened. At that event, the entire drive-in theater was filled with Beetles.

This time, the event was held in conjunction with the the New Beetle annual convention that is held every May in Roswell, N.M. At the Fiesta Drive-In in Carlsbad, N.M., the lot was filled with New Beetles as well as a few of the old ones, and VW had a photo shot that looked nearly identical to one shot at the 1969 event, showing dozens of Beetles lined up watching Herbie on the big screen.

As for the Roswell event, it’s a fun occasion every year. I attended the first one, in May 2000. For that event, caravans of New Beetles came from the four corners of the nation and met in Roswell for three days. I drove a 2000 New Beetle to the event, with my then-two-and-a-half-year-old granddaughter along with me, from Arlington, where I met the caravans coming from the East and rode along with them the rest of the way to Roswell.

Roswell was picked as the site for the first national New Beetle convention — and subsequent annual events as well — based on an early advertisement for the New Beetle that suggested it was “reverse-engineered” from an alien “mother” spaceship. Roswell is famous among flying-saucer types as the place where a major UFO landing was supposed to have occurred in the late 1940s. The town has capitalized on its UFO-landing-site reputation since, drawing (and catering to) thousands of saucer-seekers over the years.

As for the 2006 New Beetles: They will go on sale in August in coupe (actually hatchback) and convertible versions, with the new engine and other changes. No prices have been announced yet, but Fouladpoor said he doesn’t expect “any big increases” as a result of the improvements.

For 2005, New Beetle prices begin at $16,570 (plus $615 freight) for the coupe model and $21,290 (plus freight) for the convertible.

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G. Chambers Williams III is staff automotive columnist for the San Antonio Express-News and former transportation writer for the Star-Telegram. His automotive columns have appeared regularly in the Star-Telegram since 1995. Contact him at (210) 250-3236; chambers@star-telegram.com.