Almost perfect - only thing missing is a set of Ronal Teddy rims, like on this Golf Harlekin.
These were unironically great cars, would absolutely still drive today.
this post was submitted on 18 May 2026
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Nice, I learned to drive in that car (non harlekin version though)
The color scheme makes me think of Google, unfortunately.
Genuine question: I thought it was spelled "harlequin" and I checked- Miriam Webster seems to think so too. Is this another "idiot american" thing I was unaware of?
Harlekin is the German word. You know, taking into account that VW is a German company.
Well no shit. Learned something today, Danke!
Günther, we have all zese Body Panels in different kolors wat do we do wir zem?
Just Slap zem together and kall it a speshal Edition ja?
Das auto
Almost. They made one car for a trade show to show off some new paint finishing skills. People saw it and wanted it so they made more of it.
Naw it was a throwback to Beetle advertising from the 60s.
And
Repair shop down the street has had one on their lot for 3 or 4 years now, now I know why...
edit Street view or it didn't happen:
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(5 replies)
Specific to VW paint job called Harlequin. Looks terrible but is legit OEM paintjob and is super rare to see in the wild. If you saw one, consider yourself lucky. 10 times the luck if you saw one somewhere outside Germany.
Looks terrible
Agree to disagree, I think it's fun and whimsical. People take their cars too seriously nowadays.
Knowing nothing about this car I assumed it was just a Jamaican custom paint job, as it's pretty much the Jamaican colors
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Not even just rare, but each color combination is unique
There are websites who track their current known status
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I had a jacket like that c. 1991. It was fly
I'm guessing you're a white guy
uh-huh uh-huh
give it to me baby!
A-ha a-ha!
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It kind of was peak car:
- small (3,7 x 1,65m)
- wasn't that expensive
- no fancy electronic entertainment systems with subscriptions and problems. Just put in your System of a Down-CD and you're good!
- Goes up to 150km/h, which is enough speed for everyone
- Uses between 6 and 7 liters of gas. Which is better than your pickup truck
- You can drive around with 5 people and transport more stuff than you think.
Uses between 6 and 7 liters of gas. Which is better than your pickup truck
But worse than a modern diesel wagon or even midsize (huge by European standards) crossover SUV like an X5. I guess about the same as a modern petrol wagon like a Passat Variant then? Which can transport way more stuff, fit adults in the back seat and should even be able to tow a medium sized trailer (not a huge motorhome obviously).
We've come a LONG way in efficiency for internal combustion engines. Pickup trucks suck, but outside of the US they're not very common daily drivers anyway... and we have smaller ones. 2.0 diesel Ford Ranger is about on par with the fuel economy you claim for the Polo (is it really THAT high?). Same for some variants of the Toyota HiLux.
Once you put those 5 people in it, it is slow as fuck. I had a renault alliance when I was 18 and 4 people in that meant that I couldn't get enough speed to get out of 3rd. And going over the mountain pass in my home town was 2nd gear and 30mph at Best, on a 55mph road. Incredibly dangerous.
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I was curious what color would be used for the registration for these. Online it says that either the chassis/unibody determined the base color or they were registered as “multi-colored”.
I for one would love to see more colorful cars on the market :)
The rear quarter panel is the original chassis paint and registration color. This one's red.
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It would be nice if car manufacturers made fun, affordable, reliable cars again. Instead of monster trucks or high end luxury cars with paid electric limited performance packages.
That particular generation of Golf had some insane issues that only a German company could engineer. Did you know that the coolant tank would start leaking, and the symptoms showed up after coolant had wicked up the wiring harness and started shorting out the gauge cluster?
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The driver's mobile phone:
One of my teacher had a phone like that, but she drove a convertible 1995 Ford Mustang, and smoked using a cigarette holder.
Not sure what is says about my school....
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Hello, I'd like to drive around in an unsolved Rubik's Cube please.
This car is dressed like it's got a sitcom on UPN.
I swear this was VW's equivalent to trying to cook with all the items in the fridge that are about to expire.
This is the Volkswagen Harlequin, and are very rare. Only 264 were made. https://www.motorbiscuit.com/what-is-volkswagen-harlequin-car/
I just checked: your numbers are for the north american region for the golf Mk3 version, this picture is of the VW Polo III version, where apparently 3806 were made.
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The Benetton Polo, there was a golf too and an F1 team
Found it :)
Wow, I was JUST looking for this color scheme yesterday, to recreate it in My Summer Car.
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