PoloDriver

The fourth race weekend of the 2011 Engen Volkswagen Cup was ultra-competitive. In the first round at the Phakisa circuit in Welkom, Lee Thompson clinched a commanding victory in front of Devin Robertson. The second race meanwhile was won by Robertson, who celebrated revenge and beat Thompson by a razor-thin margin of 0.234 seconds. Third place on the winners’ podium for both races went to Kosie Weyers.

The 2011 Engen Volkswagen Cup series is similar to the other racing VW Polo Cup single-series championships run in both Europe and India. Just as in those series, the one-make format particularly highlights a wealth of new young driving talent. In the Engen championship, as many as thirty drivers regularly take to the track in technically-identical, 2.0-litre, 234bhp Volkswagen Polo Vivo racers. The next rounds of the 2011 Engen Volkswagen Cup are scheduled for 6 August at Scribante in Port Elizabeth.

[Source: Volkswagen South Africa // Images: keino@quickpic]

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We spent yesterday at Cliveden, driving the latest additions to Volkswagen UK’s ever-expanding range around the sunny and leafy lanes of Berkshire. The star attraction of the press office event was the Polo GTI, which although having been on sale for almost a year, we still haven’t yet driven. Thankfully – at last – that has now been rectified, and it exceeded our expectations. Proving that the Polo can wear trainers when it wants to, it felt performance-focused, out-and-out sporty, but with a comfortable and mature edge. Come back in a few days when we’ll post about our findings proper (and also report on the other cars that we drove), but in the meantime, here’s a snapshot from the day’s fun activities.

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Just before we went ‘to press’ with our story of the new Polo Sedan for South Africa, Volkswagen South Africa sent out an official press release, which we didn’t have time to include in our original post. Completing the range of South African new Polo models, the notchback joins the mainstream Polo range, Polo GTI and CrossPolo variants, making South Africa one of the only markets in the world – in our knowledge – to receive all three bodystyles. As we noted previously, the new Polo Sedan for South Africa comes in Trendline and Comfortline trims, powered by 84 and 104bhp petrol engines, and a 104bhp diesel unit. Prices start at R159,900 and rise to R218,000. The full Volkswagen South Africa press release and gallery follows.

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Rachel Inglis’ 1981 Derby GLS is just one of her many Polo possessions, totally original and with just 21,000 miles on the clock. Neil Birkitt finds out more about the jewel in the crown of Rachel’s Polo collection

It’s not often that you’ll see a Derby; indeed, you won’t even find much written about it. In fact, the model profile in the February 2008 issue of Volkswagen Driver is about the only significant article that we know of. The Derby was the booted version of the Mk 1 Polo, introduced in 1977 as an LS with a 50bhp 1.1-litre engine and later supplemented in 1980 by the 60bhp 1.3 GLS. Although immensely practical, with a boot as big as that of a contemporary Ford Cortina, the Derby was never particularly popular at the time, and the Volkswagen Driver model profile concluded by saying that it is ‘quite rare now and largely forgotten…’

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Remember the multi-coloured Polo Harlequin of 1995? Released as a special edition, the Polo Harlequin featured a multicoloured body, with each panel in a different colour. Four different versions and colourways were available – as the model was made in groups of four and the panels interchanged – with Chagall Blue, Flash Red, Pistaschio Green and Yellow being the available colours. Prospective owners didn’t know which colourway their car would be until it arrived, leaving an element of surprise in the buying process.

UK Harlequins were powered by a 1.4-litre 60bhp engine, and were fitted with 14” ‘Indianapolis’ alloy wheels and unique ‘Harlequin’ cloth, as well as a blue leather-trimmed steering wheel. Other exterior changes included white front indicators and tinted rear lamps. Originally limited to 1,000 examples worldwide, around 3,800 are thought to have been produced. Rumour has it that a few were resprayed one solid colour, as sales weren’t as high as VW was expecting.

Paul Baker of Drift Bridge Volkswagen certainly remembers the brightly-coloured special edition Polo. Wanting an eye-catching promotional vehicle to entice prospective fifth-generation Polos into the Drift Bridge Volkswagen showrooms, he had two cars wrapped in coloured film in the same colours as the original Harlequin. ‘I wanted to have a attention grabbing car for my forecourt, as Polo has some great offers at the moment, what with £500 off, 12 months free insurance and three years free servicing* (*if financed with VW Financial Services Solutions). We had two cars wrapped – one here and the other for our branch in Croydon,’ Paul said.

The wrapping was carried out by professional wrappers Creative FX, with Chris Pook leading the transformation. Each car took one day to wrap back in January, with the coloured film wrapped over a red-coloured base car. Based in Bromley, Greater London, Creative FX specialises in vinyl wrapping and personalisation of cars, vans, bikes and scooters, as well as offering stone chip protection and window tinting services for customers. And, it’s not the first time Drift Bridge Volkswagen has used Creative FX’s services. Paul Baker continues: ‘The last car we did was a bright pink Fox that went to a local customer. The Polo Harlequin 6R is for sale and we would be happy to wrap others if a customer wanted a different spec.’

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