You know those cars you see around that have mismatched colours due to an accident and a lack of the right coloured panels available at the time?
Well once upon a time Volkswagen thought this effect might be a great idea to produce from factory and hence forth the Polo Harlequin was born…
If multi-billionaires the Wiggles designed a car (other than their iconic Big Red Car of course) the Polo Harlequin would be it! Yes back in 1996 (and thankfully only being an idea that lasted during 1996) there were four different coloured versions of the Volkswagen Polo and then a fifth version that included every colour of the first four…spewed all over it. Seriously, for some reason this look was popular:
If you thought the colour placement was based on the chaos theory, guess again. There was a code to this way of garish – developed by a colour-blind kindergarten art teacher who should have retired a long time ago.
But like most passing trends, the Polo Harlequin never went on to emerge into a 1997 version – possibly sanity, a supreme lack of crack or even sales data prevailed and Volkswagen went back to one colour per car. Still apparently survivor VW multicoloured canvases still roam the occasional highway so you still have the chance to show off if you’re a really bad Ed Sheeran or Taylor Swift impersonator:
Are we the only people on planet Earth to realise that this artistic nightmare would actually be a body shops wet dream? Someone T-Bones you and suddenly you (or your insurance premiums) are up for the cost of four different auto paints..Not to mention the confusion you’d have if you worked on it at home and forgot which colour panel you actually needed:
“I’m looking for a mustard yellow bumper…I think..”
Thankfully post 96, Harlequin cars ended up meaning something different –
No wait, that’s not what we meant!
Ahh much better! Usual programming has prevailed…