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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!
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.
Nice, I learned to drive in that car (non harlekin version though)
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
Hello, I’d like to drive around in an unsolved Rubik’s Cube please.
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:
now I know why…
Why?
Ain’t nothing but a heartache
Tell me why?
31 year old VW…
The one left of it is about 60 years old
And in the same repair yard…😉
It gets people’s attention maybe?
What country is this? The Golf next to the Ford is odd. I didn’t think they even had Golfs in the US, and some of those other cars look too big for most countries in Europe.
There are Golfs in the US.
There were Golfs for decades in the US, and we initially sold them as Rabbits, and built tons in Pennsylvania. Now they only sell the GTI and R32, but no standard Golf as it were.
Huh. I hadn’t realized that they stopped making the TSI.
I loved my '09 TDI & '12 GTI. Sadly traded in my golf for something that was more capable in the remote trails and forest roads as I frequently go camping in the mountains and the Golf was holding me back from that. My wife recently picked up a used TSI, and that’s been fun to drive, but not nearly as fun as the GTIm
So many Golfs in the US. They sold a lot of mk. 3 & 4 Golfs here.
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.
Uses between 6 and 7 liters of gas.
You ruined this car for me right now!
6L/100km is terrible.
According to this source (German), the average gas consumption of privately-owned cars in Germany in 2023 was 7.8 liter per 100 km. So this 30 year old car, which is not all that fuel-efficient by modern standards, is still more efficient than what people drive today.
That is in a car from the 1990s. A modern car in that form could use way less.
If you include only petrol cars, it’s quite on par with like a 2020’s VW Golf
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
It looks like an old beat up car for which the owner bought used body parts and didn’t bother painting them.
To me, it just is a special kind of whimsical. I maybe not gonna like it as much as many nice colors some cars offer. But I’d take it over modern black/white/gray painted cars any day.
Not even just rare, but each color combination is unique
There are websites who track their current known status
Here (Italy) there was a driving school that used to have one of these
Used to do track days and car meets a lot (pre-cars and coffee stuff)… I’ve seen a few of these, always crazy to see them as a lot of people had no clue what they were.
I think the name Harlequin was a US thing? I remember them being called Color Concept in Europe, available on Golf and the Polo, from what I recall.
can’t find anything regarding the name. Seems like they were always called harlequin.
The only difference is, that the US market got Polos and EU got Golfs
“The only difference is, that the US market got Polos and EU got Golfs”
US market got Golfs, not Polos.
A few years ago i saw one fairly often in Santa Cruz, CA. I bet it’s still there puttering around
To see a sewer explosion up close is super rare, consider yourself lucky! 😁
BTW the harlekin costume is ugly AF IMO.
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?
Similar to Mercedes oil traveling up the harness and I think GM also.
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!
I’ve been trying to remember what those were called, would love to try and get my hands on one.
I think they were called Technicolor Dreamcoats
Or possibly a play parachute
I know a second hand shop that sells them.
This car is dressed like it’s got a sitcom on UPN.
This should have been the livery for runabouts on Voyager.
Do you mean DS9? I’m pretty sure Voyager had regular shuttles and the Delta Flyer.
Don’t think DS9 aired on UPN in my area, small shuttle craft naming conventions aside.
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.
But would you buy one?
A VW Harlequin specifically? No. But if there was a newer, quality car at a reasonable price in equally bright colors and a more coordinated pattern, I would absolutely consider it.
after living in nyc, I’ll never own a car again.
but if I were ever to consider owning a car… if I could get one that was an EV? I might consider it. I like that it’s bonkers-looking and different.
but that specific VW model? nah. it wasn’t that great of a car.
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…
The driver’s houseIf she was a Latin teacher, that’s par for the course.
She was not, she was a teacher providing extra help for those of us who needed it. She had a calm office where students with some extra difficulties got the help they needed.
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.
I did see a Golf one once, looked fucking awesome IMO … would go nicely with the United Colours of Benetton F1 colour scheme :-)
I swear this was VW’s equivalent to trying to cook with all the items in the fridge that are about to expire.
