anyone ever hear of the "Harlequin" VW Golf?

Indeed, one of the strangest ideas ever to come from a car maker.



http://www.rossvw.com/harlequin/

 

Officer I was run off the road by a red, green, blue, yellow little car!

 

Tell the officer that and he'll charge you for DUI.

 

I thought about that!

Actually considering what it is it's in nice shape. Most likely the owner hid it all these years.

I was just looking at Home Depot adds for faux brick like on that house. At least what I looked at was fake. Still costs nearly as much as the real thing only easier to put on.

 

Leftover odd parts at the end of a production run?

 

No, basically, they were dealership parts delivery cars, originally. You don't know just how mad I was when my idea was stolen! J/K, that idea's been around for a long time.

 

I have seen 2 one in Toronto and one in nova scotia near me.

 

They are real. A buddy has an '01 Neon that is painted very similarly, but the car was wrecked. He had a red car (which was the body shell - trunk, roof and body shell), blue doors and black front clip. It also had a 2.4L Turbo in it that was tweaked a bit. Hauled ass, too! He might've had $2K in the car.

 

I went to see a guy about a used car on Sunday and he had one of the "Harlequin" Golfs in his garage. (He was a VW nut - a 22-year old kid with four cars. Reminded me of myself at that age. )

He explained to me that VW decided to make a Golf with pieces showing all of the colors that VW had for that model year for a car show. Then, VW decided to do a production run of 264 of these cars and sell them to the public.

But they didn't sell very well (big suprise!). So maybe the dealers used them for parts delivery cars.

He also said some of the buyers - or maybe dealers - swapped out the body panels to make the car one single color. Thus ruining the car's value as a collectible. The kid knew his VW's.

Here's a picture from the 1996 Chicago Auto Show showing one of the Harlequin VWs from the Ross VW site:



The Ross Registry tries to list all the known examples:

http://www.rossvw.com/harlequin/

But being rare doesn't make them beautiful.

 

Yeah, the young guys sure know their shizznit about water-cooled VeeWees. What he said about them not selling, does make sense, but I've seen them for parts delivery just as soon as the model year debuted.

 

have seen quite a few in Germany on trips there

 

Yep that's my problem!

 

If you wreck your car and go color blind at the junkyard buying replacement parts, you could have a Harlequin anything. Like this Ranger I see every time I drive through Delaware, Ohio...

 

... and here's one on C/L in Milwaukee, WI for the low, low price of $10k.



http://milwaukee.craigslist.org/cto/5065308907.html