In 1938, the Nazis set up a scheme by which ordinary Germans could buy a KdF-Wagen in weekly instalments of five marks or more (£25 in today’s money). As many as 700,000 signed up, yet none ever got a car, as the factory switched to war work in 1939. People didn’t forget, though, and in 1954 we relayed the latest in a legal battle that some had, since 1950, been fighting against Volkswagen, its Beetle being the old KdF-Wagen. VW offered discounts, but the claimants felt this insufficient. They at last won in 1961, the Supreme Court’s ruling costing VW 34 million marks (£49m now) to honour 120,000-plus savers.