It’s a car that’s never been about excess or flamboyance. It was a car about answering the needs of the people. Compact, affordable, simplistic, and yet cleverly engineered and bursting with charm, the Volkswagen Polo has been a staple of European roads for exactly fifty years now, as well as recently being voted the ‘Best Car of the Half Century’ as part of the New Car World Championships. The Polo was born from a decade of upheaval. The oil crises of the 1970s demanded efficiency, while Europe’s growing urban centres needed smaller, more practical machines. Volkswagen’s response was a three-door hatch derived from the Audi 50, but with its own distinct identity. Its success was immediate, carving a niche as the thinking person’s compact car, and from then on, the Polo never stopped evolving. Through six generations, it became a go-to choice for quality and understated design in the supermini segment. It proved that small cars could be sophisticated, safe, and desirable. 

It's with this celebration in mind, we wanted to take a look into Volkswagen’s vast collection of one-offs, limited run editions and down-right outrageous prototypes to bring you five unique Polos that even the most die-hard of fans may not have ever seen before. 

Polo II Coupé GT G40 wide body (1986)

During the 1980s, a time when German cars were being treated to the wildest of custom looks by various tuning houses, Volkswagen Motorsport wanted a slice of the pie. Developed as a tuning kits for second-generation Polos and compatible with both the Coupé and the squareback version, with the GT G40 examples such as this one proving most popular. One of the first two models of this type converted by Volkswagen Motorsport, its entire look has been altered, thanks to widened wings that gave the Polo a similar appearance to the Rallye Golf, one of the marque’s most loved models at the time, and today!

Polo IV GTI Cabriolet (2007)

Over the five decades of simplistic goodness, the Polo has been a Coupé, a squareback, a race car, and, in 2007, even a Cabriolet. A dream in 2007 would become a reality in the form of a concept car, which naturally attracted plenty of attention thanks to its unique styling, but also numerous technical innovations which would be used on future models within Volkswagens line up. For example, the convertible top had a Z-fold, which was later used in a similar form for the Golf Cabriolet, and even featured a unique glass sliding sunroof integrated into the soft top! 

Polo II Sprint (1983)

For this Polo, performance was very much on the agenda. Built in 1983 to investigate the handling characteristics of certain drive concepts at high output power levels and with extreme loads on the chassis, the Polo II Sprint was the first Polo to feature a flat-four engine with electronic petrol injection into the rear, just like in a Beetle or Porsche 911. The increased rear axle load resulted in a significant improvement in the transferable torque, and made this Polo truly agile and a blast to drive.

Polo IV Cup prototype (2004) 

While early 2000s saw the German Touring Car Championship reach another one of its golden eras, Volkswagen were busy creating a Polo series design for young talents to enter motorsport. Using the much-loved hatchback as a base and all entrants using identical cars, the racing was inevitably fierce, and designed to showcase true driving talent. It worked, with examples like the three-time DTM champion Rene Rast, who took part in the 2005 Polo Cup and immediately won the entire series, paving his way into DTM. 

Öko-Polo II (1987)

Perhaps not the strangest Polo in our list, but one that we found truly interesting, nonetheless. Built to test the limits of driving efficiency, the Öko-Polo was powered by a tiny two-cylinder diesel direct injection engine, with an electrically activatable scroll-type supercharger. This unusual engine, mated to a 5-speed semi-automatic gearbox, which not only helped to increase the Polo’s power, but returned an average consumption of 3.6-litre per 100 kilometres!