2025 is quite the year for automotive anniversaries, with some of the most prominent brands and cars celebrating major milestones this year. Yet another example of this is the humble Volkswagen Polo which is celebrating its 50th year.
Spanning six generations, the team behind VW’s smaller city car has always concerned with the issues of appeal and driving fun, meaning a number of sporty, efficient, or exciting variants of the Polo have appeared over the years.
Perhaps none more so, however, than the iconic Harlequin. Launched in 1995, its creation came about due to 20 brightly multi-coloured Mk3 Polos being produced for display at auto shows to demonstrate the array of colours it was available in.
This vibrant rainbow colour scheme ended up becoming very popular, leading Volkswagen to create a limited run of around 3800 Polo Harlequins despite only planning on 1000, and later, 264 examples of the Mk3 Golf wearing the same scheme.
To create each car, Volkswagen would build four separate cars each painted regularly as a single colour – Chagallblau (Chagall blue, pantone code LD5D), Flashrot (Flash red, LP3G), Ginstergelb (Ginster yellow, LR132) and Pistazie (Pistachio, LD6D) – with the body panels then switched between each car so that no two connecting panels matched. Buyers had no say in which exact colour scheme they would receive as a result.
Amid a range of half-century celebrations for the Polo during 2025, Volkswagen has revealed a one-off livery for one of its Polo R World Rallycross cars. A replica of seven-time FIA WRX world champion Johan Kristoffersson’s current car, it was revealed at Bicester Motion’s spring Scramble event in the UK alongside an Inari silver Mk1 Polo GLS, a Cherry red Mk2 Polo, and the current road-going Mk6 Polo’s Black Edition and GTI variants.
This is just one of many activations that will take place over the course of the year to celebrate the Polo’s 50th, with this Harlequin racer set to be seen in action at other European events over the rest of 2025.
