Jack Nicholson’s L282 Lotus White ’67 Beetle

Eric Shoemaker on March 27, 2013

’67 Volkswagen Beetle — Jack Nicholson

Here is an interesting piece of vintage Volkswagen history from a legendary actor known around the world. In the ’60s, Jack Nicholson drove a L19K Yukon Yellow ’67 Vert.

Photography: Arthur Schatz—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

’67 Volkswagen Beetle — Jack Nicholson

’67 Volkswagen Beetle — Jack Nicholson

Posted by Eric Shoemaker

Hello, I'm Eric. I started Air-Cooled Artifacts (previously, 1967beetle.com and Lane Russell). I drive a '67 Beetle daily and love to share vintage Volkswagen stories with the world.

All Posts Website
  1. timm March 27, 2013 at 12:16 pm

    Awesome! VW history.

  2. Doug Anders March 27, 2013 at 2:34 pm

    One of your best articles yet!

    1. Eric March 27, 2013 at 3:22 pm

      Thanks! I thought it was interesting.

  3. Jody Sauvageau March 27, 2013 at 5:37 pm

    “All work and no VW makes Jack a dull boy”

    1. Eric March 27, 2013 at 6:00 pm

      I’ve read he still has this car! Love it.

  4. Greg Minuskin March 27, 2013 at 6:17 pm

    Wow! What a photo essay; what puzzles me though is “who took these photos??”

    1. Eric March 27, 2013 at 7:10 pm

      Photo credit noted above. “Photography: Arthur Schatz—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images.”

  5. Greg Minuskin March 27, 2013 at 9:33 pm

    Life Magazine, nice!

    Was driving my car today; got two offers for the car, one guy pulled $2,000 out of his pocket as a deposit!

    1. Doug Anders March 28, 2013 at 10:58 am

      Amazing. Don’t sell it!

  6. Jay Salser March 28, 2013 at 7:42 pm

    Note the unusual (for year ’67 Beetle Sedans) placement of the radio antenna! Did ‘Verts not have the placement where the Sedans did? I’m not conversant with the Convertibles to this point. jay

  7. Jay Salser March 28, 2013 at 7:59 pm

    Whoops! I think that i have answered my own question (see above). I went to TheSamba.com and viewed a number of ’67 ‘Verts–none had the factory radio hole by the windshield. All antennas, if the car had one (in the photos which I viewed) were mounted on either the right or left cowling as in earlier years. I wonder, now, what hindered making the mounting hole next to the windshield. Or–if VW simply used the basic Convertible body shell from earlier years? What!? jay

    1. Eric March 28, 2013 at 8:08 pm

      Bingo!

  8. Norbert Axtmann March 30, 2013 at 8:44 pm

    As the owner of a 1967 Yukon Yellow Beetle convertible, I found the article quite interesting. An interesting addition to the story of Jack Nicholsons convertible is that this was the car used in Cheech and Chongs movie Up In Smoke!!! Lou Adler the movies producer and Jack were long time friends. If you watch “Up in Smoke” you will see that the car even has the same license plate on it as in the Nicholson pictures.

    1. Eric March 30, 2013 at 9:18 pm

      Funny, I heard about this! I also heard Jack still owns this ’67.

  9. jimmy tillitt September 15, 2016 at 11:54 pm

    Nobody ever offers to buy my 67 bug. seems 25 years ago I would have had notes on my windshield.

Comments are closed.

%d bloggers like this: