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.
this post was submitted on 18 May 2026
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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.
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.
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.
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.
Not even just rare, but each color combination is unique
There are websites who track their current known status
Looks terrible
Agree to disagree, I think it's fun and whimsical. People take their cars too seriously nowadays.
It looks like an old beat up car for which the owner bought used body parts and didn't bother painting them.
Knowing nothing about this car I assumed it was just a Jamaican custom paint job, as it's pretty much the Jamaican colors
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.
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.
Here (Italy) there was a driving school that used to have one of these
Ok bear with me:
A Fiat Multipla with this paint.
Not just any Multipla.
The 1300 horsepower 1000tipla:
Is that the pope car?
It's a custom Multipla built by French YouTube channel Vilebrequin.
The channel ended but one of the guys created his own, and has started a new project: reach 500km/h with a Citroen Xantia.
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.
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:
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.
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
It gets people's attention maybe?
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 house
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This is the Volkswagen Harlequin, and are very rare. Only 26 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 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?
I had a jacket like that c. 1991
I'm guessing you're a white guy
uh-huh uh-huh
give it to me baby!
A-ha a-ha!
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(4 replies)
Buntglascontainer
I swear this was VW's equivalent to trying to cook with all the items in the fridge that are about to expire.
Wow, I was JUST looking for this color scheme yesterday, to recreate it in My Summer Car.
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