It’s not the first supermini, it’s not
the most popular supermini, but the Volkswagen Polo is my favourite supermini. A large part of that is probably that my family
owned one in 1977, and I spent my adolescence Youth Hostelling around Britain in one while
music blasted out of the windows. The Polo has gone on to be a world car with
many variants, but the Polo wasn’t originally a Volkswagen at all, and it wasn’t even
conceived by them. And why did Volkswagen launch the Polo just
a few months after their slightly larger, but very similar Golf? Let’s find out! (music) The story starts not with Volkswagen, or indeed
any company from the Volkswagen Group, but with NSU. They were a car company that started way back
in 1873 making bicycles. By the 1950’s they had become a top motorcycle
producer and in the 1960’s were making small, affordable run-arounds like the NSU Prinz,
a car that looked suspiciously like the Hillman Imp. Or as the NSU Prinz predates the Hillman Imp
by two years, did the Imp look suspiciously like the Prinz? They’re also famous for producing the first
Wankel, or rotary engine, in a car that was wonderfully called the “Wankelspider”. I think more cars should have names like this! Unfortunately, the engine wasn’t reliable,
leading to many warranty issues that put the company in dire straits. The company was sold to the Volkswagen Audi
group in 1969 and was put under the Audi wing. Before the takeover, NSU was working on project
K50, a new small hatchback, and with the introduction of the Fiat 127 in 1971 Audi felt this car
would be ideal to stay competitive. Between 1971 and 1974 the newly combined “Audi
NSU Auto Union AG” company worked on developing the car along with Marcello Gandini from the
Bertone design house. Gandini was more famous for designing such
supercars as the Lamborghini Countach and he invented its scissor doors, but here he
created a classic and practical design which they named the Audi 50. It was launched with much excitement and half-dressed
guitar-playing Spaniards in 1974. This rounded out Audi’s range of cars with
the small Audi 50, medium Audi 80 and large Audi 100. It was rebadged as the lower-specked Volkswagen
Polo just six weeks later. And in 1974, lower spec means just that. When it launched, the Polo didn’t even have
a fuel gauge! The timing couldn’t have better. Earlier that year the oil crisis had quadrupled
petrol prices, meaning customers were looking for fuel economical cars with small engines. The Polo and Audi 50 fit the bill with small
895cc, 1.1L and 1.3L engines, although initially the Polo was restricted to just the smallest
engine. In 1975 more than 84,000 Audi 50’s were
sold – more than its Audi 100 cousin, and even more than the Volkswagen Polo which only
sold 74,000. The Polo name was chosen, like the Golf to
denote winds (not sporting games - he doesn't know what he's talking about!). Thankfully other more dubious names were passed
over such as “Bonito”, “Euros”, “Pony” and my personal favourite – “Mini-Golf”. Maybe someone told them that was what Americans
called crazy golf! It’s easy to think that the Volkswagen Polo
and Golf were cut from the same cloth, but they have very different starts. Despite the Golf being launched in May 1974
and the Polo in September of the same year, the Golf was an internal Volkswagen project
started as a successor to their classic Beetle. By allowing NSU and Audi to take the Polo
to market, Volkswagen was doubling down on the bet that superminis were going to be the
future. Given VW were in severe financial difficulties
and fighting for survival by 1974, it was of vital importance that this supermini bet
would pay off. What’s even more important is to consider
the importance of acquiring NSU at just the right time. Volkswagen and Audi in the late 1960’s was
mainly focused on rear-wheel drive cars. NSU brought the front-wheel drive expertise
that VW needed for their future success. In 1977 VW launched the Derby, a Polo with
a boot. It had been developed by Audi, but they decided against
releasing it and offered it to Volkswagen instead. In fact, by this time the Audi 50 sales had
taken a nose-dive, while Volkswagen Polo sales were suddenly rising. By 1978 Audi decided that as a premium car
manufacturer it should be focusing on larger cars and discontinued the Audi 50. It would take until 1999 to reverse this decision
with the premium Audi A2, which would share the Polo Mk4 platform. But the Polo went from strength to strength. It started to receive the creature comforts
that were initially exclusive to the Audi 50. It got a facelift in 1979, and a faster GT
model was offered to try to replicate the success Volkswagen was having with their Golf
GTI. Over 500,000 Mark 1 Polo’s were sold. An excellent start, and with the Golf also
selling well this helped to vindicate Volkswagen’s bet on superminis. Although the Golf was sold in North America
as the Rabbit (why exactly did they call it the Rabbit?), they didn’t export the Polo. Americans like larger cars, and the Golf was
seen as the spiritual successor to the Beetle, which had sold well in the States for years. In fact, the Volkswagen group still don’t
sell anything smaller than the Audi A3 or Golf in North America. The Mark 2 Polo came with a new body style,
a near vertical tailgate that looked almost like an estate car. It was confusingly called the “Hatchback”
model, with the existing hatchback style being called the “Coupé”. This naming came about because the “Hatchback”
and saloon were launched in 1981, but the Coupé wasn’t launched until 1983 – a
reaction to the fact that some people didn’t like the new Hatchback style. The new models were limited to two engines
– the 1.0L and 1.3L. In 1984 the dashboard received an update to keep up with the rapidly
evolving competition, like the Peugeot 205 and Ford Fiesta. However, there still wasn’t a 5-door version. In 1985 the saloon “Derby” model was renamed
as the “Polo Classic” to avoid model confusion. Volkswagen toyed with highly fuel-efficient
models like an experimental small diesel and “Formel E” petrol engine with automatic
start/stop of the engine when stationary. These weren’t productised, but the knowledge
was used on later models. A more conventional diesel 1.3L engine arrived
in 1986. Hot hatches were definitely a “thing”
in the 80’s as VW knew only too well with the car that started it all – the Golf GTI. The Polo became a lot faster with a special
edition GT40 in the mid 1980’s, but with typical reserved German styling you wouldn’t
know it was a hot hatch at all. But Volkswagen had to tread a very careful
line. They didn’t want the lighter, and potentially
quicker Polo to take sales away from their more expensive Golf GTI. There was another facelift in 1990, both inside
and out. The dashboard layout was reorganised to be
more like its larger Golf sibling. The exterior became 10% more aerodynamic with
a reworked front end, and the front and rear glass was glued-in to remove seams. Volkswagen continued its fuel efficiency tests
with an “Eco-Polo” in 1988. This used a 3-cylinder diesel engine along
with a supercharger from the G40 to produce an amazing 138mpg when going a steady 40mph. Again, although this wasn’t productized,
developments went into future Golf and Lupo models. In fact, the latest diesel Polo can get a
staggering 78 combined mpg. By now the mark II Polo was now very dated,
and a new model was planned to be introduced in 1992. Due to the high demand for the existing model,
that introduction was delayed until 1994 while further refinements were made. Since 1994 four more major revisions have
been made to the Polo with the most recent being the Mark 6 in 2017. It quickly gained its five doors, plus many
other creature comforts. The latest model has a full suite of airbags,
heated seats, ABS, traction control, parking assist, adaptive cruise control, autonomous
emergency braking, climate control and keyless entry. Very different from the original Polo that
had cardboard door inserts, and no key lock on the passenger door! But all these modern features add up. You can easily spend over £25,000 on a fully
loaded new Polo. But compare that to the first Polo at 8000DM. If you convert that to today’s prices, that’s
over £40,000! We’re certainly getting more car for our
money. A cautious Volkswagen finally offered a Polo
GTI in 1998 as a limited edition, worried they might erode the Golf GTI market. They made the GTI a production model in 2000,
but with a 0-60 time of 10.6 seconds it didn’t live up to the GTI pedigree. The GTI is now a firm staple of the Polo line-up,
with the Mk6 giving a brisk 0-60 time of just 6.7 seconds. Every year Volkswagen reduces the number of
specialised parts it uses on its vehicles. The Polo uses many of the same parts that
the Golf uses, and the Polo chassis and body parts have been used on many other cars around
the world including the Seat Ibiza, Seat Córdoba, Škoda Fabia, Volkswagen Vento, Virtus and
Gol. And in 1999 the Polo platform was once again
used by Audi, first with the A2 and now with the A1 model. It’s much larger too, with the latest Polo
being larger than the first three generations of Volkswagen Golf! The Polo has truly become a world car. The Mark 1 Polo was only manufactured in Germany
but in the mid 1980’s production was expanded to Spain with Volkswagen’s purchase of Seat. By 1994 the Polo was also being assembled
in Argentina, and by 2001 assembly of the Polo and its variants had spread to Eastern
Europe, the Ukraine, Russia, Africa and China. In 2009 the Mk 5 Polo and its variants were
no longer being manufactured in Germany at all, but production had spread to more parts
of the world. By the Mk 6 in 2017 it had been consolidated
to these locations. In 2009 Volkswagen did look to expand sales
to North America, possibly as a reaction to Ford’s decision to launch the Ford Fiesta
there in the same year. High petrol prices and a global recession
were moving people to smaller cars, and Volkswagen felt people would appreciate the fuel-efficient
Polo. But it wasn’t to be, and in fact Ford ended
production of the Ford Fiesta in North America in 2019 as customers increasingly drive trucks
and SUVs. Nearly 1.4M Polos and its variants were sold
in 2018 alone, so it’s safe to say the Polo has been a big success story for the Volkswagen
group and it continues to go from strength to strength. If you want to hear more car histories, then
hit the subscribe button and don’t forget the bell icon to get notifications when they’re
published. And let me know your experiences of the Polo
and its myriad of variants in the comments below. Thanks for watching and see you in the next
video!
