i sold the car last night, it made £17,000 under the hammer, plus a 10% buyers premium,with the vat on the premium that means the buyer will be parting with just over £19,000 ! the bidding was fierce up to £15000 and then a telephone bidder and a local gentleman battled it out to the final figure.the telephone bidder does not want us to reveal his identity but tells me the car will go into his collection of classics.

I've only ever been in one of those, many years ago in the 1980s as a front seat passenger.

Three things I remember about it...... it sounded like the engine was there in the cabin with us; the vibration/noise of the whole thing made it feel like the driver was driving with the handbrake on all the time; and the windscreen was completely vertical about 6 inches in front of your nose

I remember them too. I did some practice in my dad's Beetle when I learned to drive back in 70's.

I recall how it changed lanes automatically in any sort of sidewind. We would not put up with that today - and that car was a 1600cc Beetle with the improved Mcpherson strut type front suspension, albeit crossply tyres. It did accelerate well from a standstill though - at least to 15mph when 1st gear ran out of revs (at 4000 ish I think).