The Harlequin Volkswagen Polo: Love It or Hate It?

And, yes, TIL that people have already done Harlequin Miatas.

I remember seeing the Harlequin Golf at our local VW dealership, too. I'd rök it. 

I think Quebec got a disproportionate number of the Golfs back in the day, I remember seeing them fairly often. Of course, you noticed every one of them.

There was a Honda dealer that seemed to somewhat successfully make Harlequin Goldwings.  Where the Harlequin golf is cool because it's obvious what it actually is, the Goldwings just looked bad.  But they charged more for them and people apparently bought them.  

And yes if I could by a Harlequin Polo in the states I would strongly consider it.  If it was the only way to get a Polo.  I would prefer an Up GTI though.  

I love the Harlequin Golfs.  I remember seeing one around town back in the day and thinking just how cool it looked.

Here's a question that I've wondered about the old Harlequins...  

In both the Golf example and the Polo example above, it seems that the unibody is red.  I think this is evident by the roof, c-pillar and rocker panel being red.  It is then my belief that if you looked under the hood, the engine bay would be red and if you pulled the carpet, the floor pan would be red. 

The question I wonder is, were all the Harlequins the same unibody color?  Furthermore, was the scheme always the same such as hood always green and bumper always yellow, etc? 

In reply to John Welsh :

It depends.

From the rest of Colin's piece:

The Harlequin models were actually built four at a time in Pistachio Green, Ginster Yellow, Tornado Red and Chagall Blue. The Harlequin pattern was then produced by swapping the “hood, tailgate, doors, bumpers, and mirrors according to a set pattern.”

John Welsh said:

Here's a question that I've wondered about the old Harlequins...  

In both the Golf example and the Polo example above, it seems that the unibody is red.  I think this is evident by the roof, c-pillar and rocker panel being red.  It is then my belief that if you looked under the hood, the engine bay would be red and if you pulled the carpet, the floor pan would be red. 

The question I wonder is, were all the Harlequins the same unibody color?  Furthermore, was the scheme always the same such as hood always green and bumper always yellow, etc? 

I remember reading an article about them awhile ago and if I remember correctly they had a few different "patterns". So if you had a green hood, you had red roof, yellow front passenger door, etc. Or if you had a yellow hood, you had a blue roof, red passenger front door.(and all of the corresponding other parts in whatever pattern that entailed.) So the chassis were all normal colors.

The unibody was one of the four colors.

Here's the Golf registry!

http://www.rossvw.com/harlequin/ 

And from their FAQ, it looks like Canada did indeed get a considerably higher number per capita than the US.

"This means about 178 Harlequins produced for the US, 69 produced for Canada, and 1 Harlequin sold new in Mexico."

I dig it!

I know people go nuts over them, but I am decidedly not a fan of the old or new ones.