Volkswagen, Europe’s largest automaker and maker of the famous Volkswagen shocks also stars in one of this year’s most celebrated movie the “Little Miss Sunshine”.

Volkswagen bus T2 is currently the seventh member of the odd but heartwarming Hoover family of the successful “Little Miss Sunshine” created by Twentieth Century Fox. Little Miss Sunshine is an independently made road movie which was presented last year at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and since then became very successful. The movie Little Miss Sunshine was able to snag up at least four Academy Award nominations—Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor.

The film is loaded with touching emotions and endearing kind of humor which makes this comedy perfect for family viewing. So far this movie has become a surprise success for this year’s Hollywood awards. And now, to cap off an awards season that has brought the film both mainstream and independent film recognition, the offbeat family road-trip comedy also took the original-screenplay honor at the much coveted Academy Awards and the supporting-actor prize for Alan Arkin last night.

Previous to the Oscar’s honors, Little Miss Sunshine has already received an amazing number of nominations and awards from all over Hollywood including two Golden Globe nominations from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and followed by the Best Picture Award form the Producers Guild of America and the Best original Screenplay award at the Writers Guild Awards last February 11 for Michael Arndt. And only recently the Screen Actors Guild awarded the Hoover Family with the trophy for the “Best Cast”. Actor Greg Kinnear has also taken the opportunity to thank the automotive member of the cast, he said, “I’d like to thank the engineers at Volkswagen for making a beautiful vehicle back in 1969 that was comfortable and so safe”, referring to the bus T2.

The movie revolves around the six human Hoovers that pile up in the almost 40-year-old Volkswagen but to take little Miss Olive (Abigail Breslin) to the Little Miss Sunshine Contest from Albuquerque/New Mexico to Redondo Beach, California. They have met nutty adventures during their two-day road trip which helps them to become one strong united family. The Volkswagen bus plays a major role in the family building process where they have to help each other especially when the bus gets into little problems.

One of the casts of the Little Miss Sunshine, actor Steve Carrell (who played Frank) said that he has fallen for the brave family vehicle because of its almost human faults. He also added, “I think that the bus is actually a real actor in this movie.” At least five identical buses have been used during the production of Little Miss Sunshine.

Little Miss Sunshine is not the first movie for the Volkswagen bus T2 as a matter of fact T2 has already starred in more than 80 movies. Among them are Back to the Future (1985), Free Willy (1993), Almost Famous (2000), Charlie’s Angels (2000), Spy Game (2001), Hulk (2003), and Scary Movie 4 (2006). This simply shows that Volkswagen’s vehicles are not only noted for their quality but also for their aesthetic appeal both onscreen and off-screen.