On an overcast February day in 1965, as cranes hoisted Volkswagens from the hold of this ship in Newark, N.J., an automotive revolution was underway. It had begun in 1949, when the first Type 1 Beetle arrived in New York. By 1960, Americans had bought 300,000 of them. And five years after this photo, annual sales would hit 570,000. Incredibly, the Beetle almost never got here at all. Originally built by Ferdinand Porsche (at Hitler’s behest), the “Bug” went into postwar production only because the British had forced VW to export cars to help pay Germany’s war debts. Few thought Americans—busy driving land barges from Detroit—would warm to the little coupes. But in the final accounting, close to 22 million found homes in U.S. driveways.…
