The craziest car paint option ever is 25 | Axon’s Automotive Anorak

Made commercially available in 1996 – the same year as the more stimulating release of the original Lotus Elise, Porsche Boxster, Ferrari F550 and Mercedes-Benz SLK – this highly unusual VW Polo was named the Harlequin, for reasons that become instantly apparent when you look at the images of this five-door hatch.

As loyal and dependable as the family dog, but as exciting as a fridge/freezer, the Polo has served Volkswagen very well since the model was first revealed as a more affordable version of the short-lived Audi 50 entry derivative way back in 1975. By 1994 the Polo was on its third ‘Typ 6’ incarnation, adding a boxy five-door hatch version to the traditionally three-door-only model for the very first time.

Sold primarily in solid base colours to help keep the Polo 3’s advertised entry price competitive against more affordable European hatchback rivals from Ford, Fiat, Peugeot and Opel-Vauxhall, some bright spark at VW had the inspired idea to make a handful of patchwork Polos to display some of the model’s colour palette on offer at leading Volkswagen dealerships. VW soon began to receive requests from customers for the multi-tone models, based on the special display cars they had seen in showrooms.

Encouraged by this, Volkswagen soon responded by offering a special ‘mix-and-match’ Polo model, using multi-coloured body panels – painted in standard solid paint colours – rearranged in a random symmetrical combination of Flash Red, Chagall Blue, Ginster Yellow and Pistachio Green, to create a rather unusual, high-profile special edition model, variously named Harlequin, Harlekin or Arlequin, depending on market.

These four colours served to communicate different categories of VW’s new modular ordering system, with Chagall Blue representing the engine and chassis, Tornado Red standing for options, Ginster Yellow for equipment and Pistachio Green for paint colour. 

To produce the special Harlequin editions, Volkswagen assembled the five-door Polo bodyshells using its regular methods, running each body through its automated paint shop, sprayed in just one of the model’s four regular solid colours. Once painted and dried, the Polos selected to become Harlequins were set to one side for a bespoke hand-built build process, with the car’s coachwork disassembled down to one base colour, and then reassembled, moving a blue bonnet and door from a base blue bodyshell onto a red base car, for example, and so on, thus ensuring a wide number of possible body panel variants for each Harlequin.

A brave and potentially risky move on Volkswagen’s part, the multi-coloured Harlequin was initially limited to just 1,000 non-uniform examples, spread across most European markets. Higher-than-anticipated demand though ultimately saw around 3,800 Harlequins being built, with reportedly 2,500 of these special Polos produced by VW for UK between 1996 and 1998. 

The UK-market Polo Harlequin was based the regular 1.6, eight-valve 75PS (55kW) petrol engine, featuring the five-door body and standard steel wheels only, but with special ‘Joker’ pattern upholstery, plus a bespoke gear knob and steering wheel. Of the 2,500 UK Harlequins sold, the popular How Many Left website – which uses DVLA records – states that there are fewer than 100 examples remaining, currently either still in use or declared SORN off the road. Rumour has it that when new, at least one customer supposedly ordered one of each possible Harlequin colour combination so none of his Polos were quite the same!

Excited by the novelty of the Harlequin concept, Volkswagen’s official distributor in the United States proposed a similar idea for a limited run of multi-coloured Golfs, as the Polo was not imported into the USA. A special run of 264 Golf Arlequin (with a different name) five-door models were therefore produced just for VW North America.

Now, a quarter of a century since Volkswagen first introduced its crazy Harlequin format to the market, the brand’s Dutch importer, Pon, is celebrating this anniversary by offering a special Harlequin ‘concept’ version of the current sixth-generation 'Typ AW’ Polo. Created as a unique marketing gimmick for the moment, and not officially planned to be made, the new 2021 patchwork Polo recalls the exact quartet of colours first used by VW 25 years ago, despite none of the original 1996 solid paint colours still being available on the current Polo range.

Volkswagen claims that it has no intention to officially make and sell examples of this new Dutch market Polo Harlequin, but given the unexpected popularity of the original multi-coloured model 25 years ago, who knows? So, if this new patchwork Polo appeals to you as your next ‘technicolour dream car,’ have a word with your local VW dealer and then watch this space, as we all need something to brighten up our lives (and roads) at the moment!