Trisha Rosado bought a rusty 2003 Volkswagen Beetle convertible at a veteran’s auction in Philadelphia last August for $1,000. She and her husband collect Volkswagens, and this one looked like a parts car. It had been sitting unused for five years and was in rough shape.
While cleaning it out, Rosado found an envelope tucked under the sun visor. It said “farewell my love bug.” Inside was a handwritten letter from the previous owner to the car itself.
“Thank you for keeping me safe, for all the joy and fun we had,” the letter read. “You were my dream car. You made me feel special. I hope your journey continues and you bring someone lots of joy.”
It was signed by someone named “Tree.”
“There’s no way we can chop this car up,” Rosado told FOX43. “We need to find the owner.”
She posted the letter on her TikTok (@the.beetle.queen) page. The video got over 600,000 views and eventually reached Tree Palmieri in New York through a friend who recognized the story.
Tree had owned the Beetle, which she’d named Herbetta, for 22 years. She’d bought it brand new in 2003 specifically to share with her father, a Marine who was obsessed with Herbie the Love Bug. “When I was little, my father was obsessed with Herbie,” Tree said. “He loved Beetles. My first movie was Herbie the love bug. We had a fish named Herbie.”
Tree’s father only got to enjoy the car for three years before he died. The Beetle became her connection to him.
When Tree and Rosado connected, the car was already being restored with help from generous donors. Rosado started a GoFundMe to get it in perfect shape and transport it back to New York.
The reunion happened in December. Tree got Herbetta back, fully restored.
“This is like my dad coming back, giving me a hug,” Tree said. When asked what her father would say if he could see the reunion, she didn’t hesitate: “He would say, ‘Go get ’em, kid. Go get ’em.’”
Rosado’s perspective on the whole thing: “I may have found Herbetta, but Herbetta brought you to me.”
The emotional connection people feel to their cars is real. An Aviva survey found that one in eight car owners feel a strong emotional connection to their vehicles, while 23% still think about their first car. Seventy-eight percent said a car had been part of major life events, and 19% said their vehicle reminded them of important moments.
The comments on Rosado’s TikTok were full of people sharing their own car stories. One person wrote about selling their canary yellow 2000 VW Beetle when expecting their first baby: “I cried when the new owners drove away in it.”
Rosado says she plans to restore more vintage Beetles from her collection and give them away to new owners. Tree’s letter didn’t just save one car. It started something bigger.
You can follow Trisha Rosado (@the.beetle.queen) for more car and lifestyle content.
