I’ve noticed, that older cars, at least American ones, often had push/pull style headlight switches with chrome knob.

The switch having two positions, the first one turned on the parking lights only. The second pull turned on parking lights and low beam headlamps.

Turning the dial is used to brighten or dim the instrument panel lights.

Sometimes there’s a second ring behind the switch that adjusts the sensitivity of the automatic headlamp on/off sensor, on cars that had that feature. Ford calls this Autolamp, while GM called it the Twilight Sentinel feature.

Cars fancy enough to have automatic high beam dimming (like Lincoln and Cadillac) would have a slider switch to adjust that as well).

I think other cars such as Japanese or European makes, often had push button or rocker headlight switches, although some American models did also.

Also I have seen older cars where the high/low beam switch is a foot operated button to the left of the driver. Later it was moved to the turn signal stalk on the steering column. Either a push forward for high beams/pull back for low beams, or a spring loaded switch that you pulled toward you for either.

Some cars have a flash to pass feature as well that will quickly activate the headlamps on high beam even when they’re turned off, for signaling other drivers.

Now my first car, had the headlamp switch on the left turn signal stalk, as a dial on the end. The right stalk controlled the windshield wipers.

The current one has the headlamp dial to the left of the steering column instead, the wipers and turn signals are controlled by the left stalk, with no stalk on the right.

I preferred the setup in my former car. Plus it was setup where the headlamps couldn’t be inadvertently left off after dark, while my current one can if I accidentally switch them to off. So I leave them on Auto instead.

My 2007 Chevrolet Aveo have rotary switch at the turn signal stalk.  Push the stalk away from me uses high beam headlights.  Pull up, but it will pop back to normal position acts like flashing the high beam headlights.

That sound a like how the switch on my Chevrolet was.

@rjluna - my 1999 Toyota Corolla has the same headlight controls, twist the turn signal stalk to the 1st position to turn on the dash lights, tail lights, and front markers, 2nd position turns on the dash lights, tail lights, and headlights. For high beams, push the stalk away for continuous high beams, pull towards for momentary high beams. Since this is a Canadian model, there's a PC on the dash near the windshield to activate the DRLs during the day automatically, no manipulation of the stalk is required for DRLs.

I believe most Toyota vehicles use the same headlight controls.

From the mid-80s to the mid-90s, GM was using a pair of interlocking rocker switches in many of their vehicles for headlights.  One rocker turned the parking lights on and off, and the other rocker turned the headlights on and off.  The OFF paddle of the park light rocker overlapped the headlight rocker in such a way that turning the headlights on turned both on, and hitting the off paddle turned them all off.