Disney, pimp my ride!

Darned if that 1963 VW Beetle isn’t back on the track to remind us – and Disney – that this is what Disney does well, what Disney should always do well.

Herbie, the hero of 1968’s “The Love Bug,” 1974’s “Herbie Rides Again,” 1977’s “Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo” and 1980’s “Herbie Goes Bananas,” a TV series and one TV movie, has seen better days. We meet him on his way to the car crusher (again).

That’s when he picks up Maggie “Mag-Wheels” Peyton, played with the last ounces of adolescent charm that Lindsay “All Grown Up” Lohan can manage.

Herbie has a thing for younger women.

Maggie has just finished college and dreams of a job with ESPN. That’s because dad (Michael Keaton) won’t let her join the family stock-car racing dynasty. He has reserved that role for her older brother Ray (Brekin Meyer), as in “In-the-Way Ray,” a guy who can’t run a lap without crashing.

Maggie, with the help of old beau Kevin (Justin Long) and a certain souped-up Bug with a chip on his carburetor, is about to change the family luck.

Director Angela Robinson has only one prior feature credit, but it’s an edgy one (“D.E.B.S.”). She doesn’t bring much of that edge to “Herbie.” But this is a supremely competent, and confident, kids’ comedy. It’s perfectly shot and cut, from the rough-and-tumble spin around the demolition derby track to the NASCAR California raceway finale, and every lightweight human moment in between.

Lindsay Lohan, right, plays Maggie Mag-Wheels Peyton opposite co-star Justin Long in Herbie:

The script is just clever enough. Herbie flirts with a showroom-new Beetle – again, that thing for younger women. Matt Dillon throws himself into the role of stock-car racing bully and villain, Trip Murphy. He’s all about squashing the Bug.

“Better get this back to the circus before Bozo finds out!”

Keaton acts as though he cares about his career again. And Lohan waltzes through this sweet nothing with the sure footing of an actress who knows her craft, knows what works, and can quite literally turn on the charm when the camera rolls. Hilary who?

“Herbie” doesn’t win points for originality, even in this season of all nostalgia, all the time. See “Star Wars,” “Batman,” “Bewitched,” The Longest Yard,” “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” or “The Honeymooners” for proof of that.

And heaven help us if this is a hit. Disney will try to Beetlemania us all over again.

But the ghost of Buddy Hackett hovers over this in its old-fashioned chaste romance – a love match assisted by a Love Bug – its gee-whiz take on racing and the matter-of-fact way every character comes to accept (eventually) that a Volkswagen can have a soul.

As that ancient Beetle with the number 53 on his hood reminds us, when it comes to good kiddie fare, it’s about the heart, not the horsepower.