The popular Polo
With reported sales of more than 20 million, the Volkswagen Polo is one of Europe’s most successful small cars.
In 2025, it reached an important milestone, having been in production for half a century.
There could be no better reason than that for us to look at the Polo’s history, with an emphasis on those produced up to 2000.
It contains some surprises, including the fact that the car was not originally intended to be a Volkswagen at all.
The reason for the Polo
The car that became the Volkswagen Polo was necessary because the now-defunct German manufacturer NSU needed a replacement for its Prinz, produced in various forms from 1958-’73.
The Prinz was rear-engined, and while this layout was quite common in Europe when the car was launched (being used for the Fiat 500 and 600, the Hillman Imp, the Simca 1000, the Volkswagen Beetle and a variety of Renaults), it seemed quite old-fashioned by 1970.
NSU therefore followed modern practice and developed one of the first of what we would now recognise as superminis – small hatchbacks with transversely mounted engines driving the front wheels.
However, this part of the story is complicated by the fact that NSU, stung by the unreliability of its rotary-engined Ro80 and the warranty claims this led to, had lost its independence in 1969 and become part of a Volkswagen-owned confection called Audi NSU Auto Union, today known simply as Audi.
The Audi 50
Shortly before it began work on the supermini, NSU had created another, larger car called the K70, whose brand name was changed just before production to Volkswagen, and which became VW’s first model with a front-mounted, water-cooled engine and front-wheel drive.
With the same intention of distancing itself from the increasingly poisonous NSU name, Volkswagen decided that the supermini should be marketed as an Audi, a brand which had been reintroduced in 1965 (after well over 20 years of redundancy) in response to the similarly plummeting reputation of DKW.
Now known as the Audi 50, the car was introduced in late 1974 with two versions of the 1093cc EA111 engine, a 1272cc derivative of the same unit arriving in 1977.
The 50 was discontinued in the summer of 1978, after 180,828 examples had been built at the Volkswagen plant in Wolfsburg, Germany, and Audi would not return to this sector of the market until 1999, when it brought out the radical, aluminium-bodied A1.
The first Volkswagen Polo
In March 1975, when 43,002 Audi A50s had been built, the VW Polo entered production in the same Wolfsburg factory.
The two models were very similar, but the Polo was less well-equipped, had an 895cc version of the EA111 engine producing 40bhp, and was significantly cheaper.
The 1.1-litre engines used in the Audi were introduced in 1976, and this Polo would survive until 1981, two years after a facelift which included larger black plastic bumpers.
By that time, more than 1.1 million units had left Wolfsburg, including a non-hatchback derivative which we’ll look at next.
Volkswagen Derby
Despite the increasing prevalence of superminis, saloon cars were still far more popular in 1970s Europe than they are today.
Seeing the opportunity to expand the market appeal of an already-successful car, Volkswagen created the Derby, which was identical to the Polo with the single exception that it had a three-box saloon body.
Introduced in 1977, the Derby might have looked a little less modern than the Polo, but its shape gave it a major advantage.
The luggage capacity was no less than 515 litres, far greater than the 351 litres of a 2025 Polo hatchback with all its seats in the upright position.
Volkswagen Polo and Derby facelift
Volkswagen made small but significant changes to both models in 1979.
Larger black plastic bumpers, black doorhandles and a revised grille made them look more fashionable than they had previously, at least by the standards of the time.
The Derby was also given rectangular headlights, while the Polo retained the original round units.
The effect of this was to make the Derby visually distinctive from the Polo at both ends, rather than just the rear, and to give it a resemblance to the Jetta, the saloon version of the VW Golf.
Volkswagen Polo second generation
The new VW Polo was introduced in August 1981 with an estate-like, three-door body which provided 1000 litres of luggage space when the rear seats were folded, and became available a year later as a coupé.
Both versions were 3.66m (12ft) from end to end, which made them 166cm (65in) longer than the car they replaced.
The engine line-up was initially much the same as before, but in 1986 Volkswagen added a diesel to the range for the first time.
This began as a 1272cc unit, but it was later enlarged to 1398cc, making it the highest-capacity engine yet fitted to any VW Polo.
Volkswagen Derby second generation
Sales of the first Derby had been below expectations, so Volkswagen discontinued it in 1979, two years before the Polo.
In a reversal of this policy, there was a Derby version of the second Polo, originally with rectangular headlights but with round ones from 1984.
A year after that, the Derby name (which was replaced by Polo Classic in some markets) was dropped entirely, and the car was branded everywhere as a Polo.
This wasn’t quite the end of the story, though, because some later Polos were marketed as Derbys outside Europe.
Volkswagen Polo second generation facelift
Despite several detail differences, all early Polos looked broadly similar until 1990.
In that year, the car’s appearance changed dramatically thanks to a more aerodynamic front end.
This included rectangular headlights which were substantially larger than any used on the Derby.
The Polo continued in this form for a further four years before being replaced in 1994, having reached a production total of approximately 2.7 million.
Volkswagen Polo G40
The Coupé GT G40 built in small numbers in 1987 and 1988, and the post-facelift G40 which succeeded it after a short gap in production, gave the VW Polo a level of performance well beyond anything seen previously.
Its engine was the 1272cc EA111 which dated back to the Audi A50 days, but for this application it was supercharged (the G part of the car’s name referring to the fact that the scroll-type compressor looked something like that letter).
The maximum power output was 111bhp, and a lot of that was available at quite modest revs.
There were criticisms in the media about poor build quality and only averagely good grip, but in a straight line the G40 was a match for the 1.6-litre, naturally aspirated Peugeot 205 GTI and Ford Fiesta XR2i.
Volkswagen Polo third generation
Closely related to the Seat Ibiza launched a year earlier, the new Polo introduced in 1994 was slightly longer than its immediate predecessor at 3.7m (just over 12ft), making it the same length as the first-generation VW Golf – a fact often quoted in discussions at the time about how much larger cars were than they used to be.
Customer demand had also increased, and Volkswagen responded to that by making this the first Polo available with five doors.
Similarly, increasing concern about safety led to the introduction of ABS, airbags and seatbelt tensioners.
The success of the new model is clear from the fact that while it took Volkswagen 13 years to manufacture 2.7 million Mk2 Polos, it built 3.5 million Mk3s in just eight years.
Volkswagen Polo Harlequin
The Harlequin (or Harlekin in German) was named after the stock character in Italian commedia dell’arte theatre, notable for his multi-coloured chequered coat.
The car, which went on sale in 1995, reflected the design of the coat in that its body was painted in blue, green, red and yellow.
Building a car from scratch this way would be monumentally expensive, so Volkswagen adopted the easier and cheaper method of taking four Polos, one of each colour, off the production line and mixing up their panels.
This resulted in several combinations, but in every case it’s easy to tell what colour the car was originally – that’s the one used on the roof, the rear pillars and the sills, which are not easily detachable.
Volkswagen Polo Open Air
Exactly contemporary with the Harlequin, the Open Air is the closest thing there has ever been to a production VW Polo convertible.
Most of the bodyshell was standard, but there was a large hole in the top covered – or, as desired, not covered – by a fabric roof in the same colour as the bodywork.
The VW Beetle was available with something similar, but that had to be operated manually, while the roof in the Open Air could be opened or closed by pressing a button and letting electric motors do the work.
Volkswagen Polo Estate
Although the earliest version of the Mk2 Polo looked very much like an estate car, the first Polo specifically called Estate (or, alternatively, Wagon or Variant) became part of the third generation in 1997.
A luggage capacity of 1250 litres with the rear seats folded left no doubt about its practicality.
There could, however, be doubts about how much of a VW Polo it was, because the Estate was almost indistinguishable from the Seat Cordoba Vario.
Similarly, it was hard to tell the Polo Classic of the same period apart from the three-box Cordoba saloon.
Volkswagen Polo GTI
Although Volkswagen brought out a GTI version of the first-generation Golf within just two years of that model’s launch, it took 13 years for the badge to be applied to a Polo.
The first VW Polo GTI, a limited-edition model introduced in 1998, had a naturally aspirated, 1.6-litre, petrol engine which produced 118bhp, and therefore took over from the G40 as the most powerful Polo there had ever been.
Having at last been established, the concept became a long-running feature, and as of 2025 there have been GTI versions in every subsequent Polo generation.
Volkswagen Polo fourth generation
The first VW Polo of the 21st century was, perhaps inevitably, the largest so far, and was available with several new engines, the lower-capacity ones generally having three cylinders.
Round headlights made a comeback, though there were now four of them, the inner pair being significantly smaller than the outer.
That changed in 2005, when, as pictured here, the car was given a facelift which included two far more complex headlight units.
The range was now wider than before, which partly explains why the fourth Polo reached a production record of 4.1 million units in eight years, easily exceeding the Mk3’s 3.5 million in the same amount of time.
Volkswagen Polo Fun and CrossPolo
Before the 2005 facelift, Volkswagen created an unprecedented variation on the Polo theme.
Like the earlier Rover Streetwise, the Polo Fun (pictured) gave the impression of being an SUV, with raised suspension, extra body protection and unique-to-the-model bumpers, but its off-road potential – unlikely to be an important consideration for most buyers in any case – was compromised by the fact that it did not have four-wheel drive.
The styling update made it impossible for the Fun to continue in its original form, so in 2006 VW brought out the CrossPolo, which was essentially the same car with the newer look.
The Fun and CrossPolo names were not used in all markets; in the UK, for example, both models were known as Polo Dune.
Volkswagen Polo BlueMotion
Aerodynamic changes, higher ratios in the upper gears, low-rolling-resistance tyres and revised mapping for the 1.4-litre, turbodiesel engine all contributed to the very impressive fuel economy of the BlueMotion introduced in 2006.
In its lightest form, the car had an official CO2 rating of 99g/km which made it particularly appealing in the UK, because it was therefore exempt from Vehicle Excise Duty.
The downside was that what you saved in VED payments wasn’t even close to how much more expensive the car was than a regular VW Polo 1.4 TDI.
According to a Volkswagen spokesperson, however, market research before the car’s launch had shown that potential customers were willing to spend a lot of money up front in order to avoid paying a small amount of tax.
Volkswagen Polo fifth generation
The Mk5 VW Polo was based on the same platform used for the Audi A1 and Seat Ibiza, among others, but was given a distinctively Volkswagen look to make it resemble the contemporary Golf and Scirocco.
As usual, it was the largest model so far, the hatchback measuring nearly 4m (c13ft) and the saloon considerably more.
There was a GTI, of course, along with a new CrossPolo for people who liked the rugged appearance and the slightly greater off-road potential.
In the by-now-customary eight-year production run (which, once again, included a facelift), VW achieved a new production record for the Polo of 6.3 million vehicles.
Volkswagen Polo R WRC Street
The R WRC Street was introduced in December 2012, a few weeks before the start of the 2013 World Rally Championship.
The GTI of that time had a 1.4-litre engine which produced 177bhp with the help of both a turbocharger and a supercharger, but the R WRC Street easily eclipsed this with its 217bhp, 2-litre, turbo engine.
It was the roadgoing version of the even-more-powerful, 1.6-litre, turbo R WRC, which immediately established – and would go on to hold – the dominant position in world rallying.
Volkswagen and Sébastien Ogier respectively won the manufacturers’ and drivers’ titles four years on the trot, breaking the nine-year run achieved by Citroën and Sébastien Loeb.
Volkswagen Polo sixth generation
The sixth Polo overall was the first to be based on one of the Volkswagen Group’s MQB platforms, which are not platforms at all in the traditional sense, but collections of pre-determined component designs that can be (and are) shared among several models.
Already quite sharp to begin with, the design became even more so in 2021, when VW created more angular front and rear light clusters.
Two years later, to commemorate a quarter of a century of Polo GTIs, Volkswagen created the GTI Edition 25, which was available only briefly.
Volkswagen Polo future
Throughout its first half-century, the Polo was only ever sold with petrol or diesel engines, and was not available as a hybrid or electric vehicle.
In 2025, Volkswagen decided to change this due to a revision in the naming strategy of its all-electric models, most of which (with the exception of the ID. Buzz) were originally called ‘ID’ plus a single-digit number.
Starting in 2026, names of cars with internal-combustion engines will be transferred to the electric range, so the concept car known as the ID. 2all will go into production as the ID. Polo (pictured here in camouflaged form).
Similarly, the ID. GTI Concept, regarding which VW promises ‘outstanding dynamics and plenty of driving pleasure’, will be marketed as the ID. Polo GTI.
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