The Volkswagen Era

It wasn't long, however, before my cousin, still in his twenties, discovered he had a knack for sales as well as an interest in cars.Soon, he combined the two by deciding to buy & then sell, used Volkswagens. And of course, as he trolled the market, suitable cars for the whole family became available. We, Dad, me & others, soon all drove VWs. They weren't called Beetles, in those days of course, as there was only one model, starting from before the war. At the time I became a VW driver, the engine was an air-cooled one of 1200 cc developing, gasp, 36 HP! (In comparison, my current car has way too much engine power at 325 HP)
My first Volksie was a 1956 with the small back window like this one below - I think the original pre-war cars had a tiny, divided rear window so mine was a step up!

But of course, after a while there were further refinements to the car - the engine power went up to 40 HP, turn signals were incorporated into the mudguards, replacing the lit-up semaphores in both my car & Dad's earlier A30.
Dad got a green one to replace the Austin, & later another with fancy, chrome override bumpers! 
One of the reasons we drove Volkswagens was that, in many ways, they were an improvement upon the alternatives, being mostly outdated Morris Minors or Fords. VWs were well made, virtually indestructible & very economical with fuel. But one funny quirk was that in the interest of economy, my car didn't have a fuel gauge! Instead, it had a little lever tucked away in the footwell above the pedal which switched the basic fuel tank over to the emergency tank, giving you about another 30 miles of driving. What you were supposed to do was drive until the engine spluttered, kick the lever over to horizontal, fill up as soon as possible & kick the lever back into its vertical position. It was all very easy to do, but very hard for me to remember, so what happened far too often was driving until the engine coughed, trying to switch over & then discovering that you were ALREADY drawing petrol from the emergency tank, & thus stuck!