The VW Polo Is 50: Here Are Our Favourite Versions

In the 1970s, Volkswagen was in the midst of the biggest period of change in the company’s history, as it transitioned from the rear-engined, air-cooled cars it had been producing since its inception to a range of front-engined, water-cooled models that continue to form the foundation of its lineup to this day.

1973 brought the Passat, the Golf arrived in 1974, and 50 years ago this month, in early May 1975, came the little VW Polo.

Initially a rebadge of Audi’s own small car, the 50, the Polo quickly became a standout member of VW’s lineup. It arrived a year before the Ford Fiesta, and has ended up outliving it, making it the longest-lived supermini nameplate by our reckoning. And clearly, even in this ever-changing car market, there’s still lots of love for the little Polo, now in its sixth generation: last year, it and the Golf were the only non-crossovers among the 10 best-selling cars in the UK.

As the Polo celebrates five decades on sale, then, it seems apt to take a look back at its life and pick out our favourite ever versions. Happy 50th, Polo.

Polo Mk1

The entire first generation of the Polo deserves recognition, not for its engineering innovation of its sporting prowess, but because it’s just such a darn good bit of design. Hailing from the prime of the ultra-crisp ‘folded paper’ era, its just-so proportions were the work of one Marcello Gandini of the Bertone design house.

Gandini is best remembered for styling mid-engined exotica like the Lamborghini Miura and Countach and the Lancia Stratos, but the little Polo showed he was just as talented when he turned his hand to a humble hatch for the masses.

Polo Mk2 ‘Breadvan’

And speaking of design, is it strange that the original second-generation Polo Hatch, with its not-always-flattering nickname of ‘Breadvan’, is catching our eye more and more these days?

Its styling was polarising enough at launch in 1981 that it prompted VW to introduce a second, swoopier hatchback body named the Coupe, which is a rather nice thing in itself, but something about the Breadvan’s unashamed boxiness appeals to us.

Polo G40

The Polo’s first real foray into performance came in 1987 with the G40, a product of VW’s late ’80s flirtation with supercharging. A blower was strapped onto the Mk2 Polo’s 1.3-litre engine, boosting it to 111bhp, initially for a small run of 500 LHD cars.

When the Polo got a facelift in 1990, though, the G40 returned as a regular member of the range, and in the UK too. With its 0-62mph time of 8.6 seconds and 122mph top speed, it was remarkably spritely for an early ’90s supermini. It’s now a decently attainable classic hot hatch – if you can track one down, which is no small feat in Britain.

Polo Harlequin

In a move that could really only have happened in the ’90s, the Polo Harlequin was a multicoloured special edition of the third-gen car launched in 1995. Its origins lie in a series of cars built this way by the factory for a promotional shoot to show how easily interchangeable the Mk3’s panels were.

The promo cars were such a hit with the public, though, that VW decided to produce a limited run. In fact, it was so popular that while only 1000 were planned to be built, the company ended up making around 3800 of them overall. Somehow, this feels like something the straight-laced 2020s car industry just wouldn’t do, as evidenced last year when VW teased the colour scheme’s return on the ID3, only for it to turn out to be a cruel April Fools’ Day PR stunt. Sigh.

Polo Mk5 GTI

After the supercharged G40, warmed-over Polos inherited the GTI badge from their big brother from the third generation onwards. Truthfully, the Polo GTIs have never been the most thrilling hot superminis, instead opting for something a bit more grown-up compared to the usual crop from Ford, Peugeot, Renault and latterly, Mini.

That doesn’t mean they’re bad cars, though, and perhaps the best one was the Mk5. Early cars had an odd and not particularly brilliant 1.4-litre engine with both a turbocharger and a supercharger, but the 2014 facelift swapped this out for a more conventional 1.8-litre turbo four with 178bhp. This turned it into a proper baby Golf GTI, blending decent power and a good chassis with build quality that was a cut above many rivals.

Polo R WRC

The Polo’s debut in the World Rally Championship in 2013 was one of those fairytale motorsport stories you get every once in a while. Having not fielded a top-class WRC entry since the fairly disastrous Golf Rallye in 1990, nobody was quite sure what to expect from VW’s return to the championship.

The Polo, and the unstoppable Sébastien Ogier, quickly silenced everyone when it utterly dominated the championship in 2013. And 2014. And 2015. And 2016. In fact, the Polo R WRC has a 100 per cent championship win rate, and who knows how many more it could have achieved had the Dieselgate affair not forced the VW Group to cull most of its major motorsport programmes.