Building Blocks
Anyone Who Doesn’t Know Better Might Think The Volkswagen Polo Harlekin is an out-of-control Joke from the Local Carnival Association. But Nothing Could Be Further From the Truth …
The Hysterical Polo Harlekin Simply Originates Under the Beige Suspended Ceiling of Volkswagen’s Marketing Department. The Reason is more dull than funny. For the third generation of the polo, Volkswagen Throws the familiar equipment levels (C, CL, GL) overboard. In Its Place Comes a New System of ‘Building Blocks’ with which the customer can assemble his or her polo as desired. In The Early 90S, Something Like This was Still Quite Special, which is why is Volkswagen Puts the Building Blocks at the Center of the Polo’s Introduction Campaign. For Clarification, Each Building Block is Given a Color: Green for the Paint, Blue for the Drive, Yellow for the Interior, and Red for the Option Packages. To Further Emphasize The Juggling with the Building Blocks, Volkswagen Builds Twenty Four-Color Polos, which can be Seen at Car Shows and Other Events. And that catches on… Everywhere they are SEEN, Customers report that they want to buy a motley polo.
1,000 units, but that turns out not to be enough
Because the Nagging Doesn’t STOP, Volkswagen Decides to Build a series of 1,000 units. That is also the moment that the car gets its name: Harlekin, after the brightly colored clown from the Italian commedia dell’arte from the sixte teth and sevente tehtenth centuries. It Soon Becomes clear that 1,000 copies is not nearly enough to satisfy the harlekin hunger. In The Course of 1995, A Second Series of Another 2,800 Cars Follows.
In 2021, The Dutch Importer Once Put a Volkswagen Polo in a Harlekin Jacket.
Just a phaeton harlekin!
Volkswagen Builds The Harlekin on a Mini Assembly Line, which is Run by Seven Employees. The Cars Roll Off The Line As Ordinary Yellow, Green, Blue and Red Polos. Then the hood, tailgate, doors and bumpers are removed, sorted by color and put back accordance to a fixed pattern. This creates four differentent Harlekins. The Base Color Can Be Recognized by the Roof, The C-Pillar and the Sills. Nobody is Talking About the Building Block Concept of the Polo Anymore, But The Polo Harlekin Got A Prominent Place in the History of Volkswagen. An Original Harlekin is now a serious classic and self-built copies regularly appear, with an absolute high/low point being a phaeton harlekin. The Clownish Polo Teaches US One Thing: Success is impossible to predict!
They are weird in the Netherlands, but in Germany you still see the polo Harlekin in the Wild.