'Inheriting my grandfather's 1973 VW Beetle unlocked family memories'
telegraph.co.ukVW Beetle, which he bought on 27 November 1973, from Broad Street Motors, Banbury. The car’s colour was sea-blue and its body was, at least to a non-clerical eye, Rubenesque, with the wheels covered by elegant arches and the roof sweeping down to the back bumper in a single graceful curve.
Beneath that curve was a 1300cc engine, housed at the back, as was the custom within Beetles, rather than the front. The seats had fabric covers resembling knitwear.
I don’t know exactly what he paid for it, but it must have been something like £2,000, the average cost of a Beetle at the time and the equivalent, in today’s money, of about £25,000.The Beetle’s origins were ignominious.
Forty years before my grandfather’s purchase, Ferdinand Porsche was commissioned by Adolf Hitler to make a people’s car – ein Volkswagen – that could carry two adults and three children down the autobahn at 100km/h (62mph).
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