The Volkswagen Golf Harlequin Is The Strangest VW You Probably Didn’t Know Existed

In 1996, VW offered the “masses” a whopping 264 five-door Golf GL Harlequins, conveniently made manufactured in its Puebla, Mexico plant. Yes, you read that right: two hundred and sixty-four. And in a January 2021 article on The Drive, almost half were still on the road as of 2019.

Every Harlequin got sprayed entirely in one of the four offered colors. Only after production line workers finished building the car were the bolt-on exterior panels removed and summarily swapped around (via The Truth About Cars). Owners can tell what the original base color was by looking at the rocker panels or C-pillars (via Motor Biscuit).

But it wasn’t random. Volkswagen outlined a method to its madness in a chart showing which panel went on which car and where it needed to go. Another interesting tidbit is that the Chagall Blue and Pistachio Green were exclusive European colors not found on any American Golf model, per The Truth About Cars.

With such a limited production run, these psychedelic Golfs don’t pop up for sale very often. About a year ago, a ’96 Harlequin with 78,870 on the odometer sold for $25,000. The original retail sticker price was $15,120, which is not a particularly bad investment when you consider most new cars lose about 15% of their value each year after the first year.