In case you haven’t been paying attention to the two road rallies that went down in America, you’ve been missing out. In particular, this VW Harlequin makeover for the Audi R8 was one of the most epic entries into the 2022 goldRush Rally.
There were supercars that were way more expensive than this, of course, McLarens, Lambos, and Ferraris. However, this “Down to Clown” Harlequin Audi R8 just seemed like it belonged with this wrap, due to the connection between Audi and Volkswagen.
The car belongs to a popular young YouTuber, JackUltraMotive, who turned his passion for racing games into a successful automotive channel. The 2017 Audi R8 V10 is also sitting a little lower on a set of Volk Racing TE37s, which are some of the most popular forged wheels out there.
As you can probably tell, his custom Audi R8 has been wrapped in a way that basically every body panel is a different color. But why?
VW Harlequin: the story of the rainbow factory paint
If you don’t know the history behind the color, you’re going to think this is strange or even ugly. But some German car fans will love this.
The Harlequin is best known in the United States, and like most things to do with VW USA, the story is a little dorky, the kind of stuff James Pumphrey might tell you about sitting in a folding chair next to his 2.5-liter-swapped European Mk3 at a car meet.
Harlequin Golfs belong to the Mk4 generation. 264 were made for the United States and less than 113 have survived, so they’re super-valuable. Four colors were used for the different panels: LY3D Tornado Red, L132 Ginster Yellow, LD6D Pistachio Green, and L5D5 Chagall Blue.
But why? Volkswagen wanted to take something interesting to the big American auto shows and it decided to custom-paint four Golf hatchbacks this way. But enough people asked to buy one, so they made 60 more. After that, 200 more examples were produced, but Volkswagen dealerships could sell them all, so some were painted back to normal colors.
The pattern came in four different color combinations, depending on the shade painted on the chassis/body. Volkswagen also fitted the Golfs with a silver set of dials and different cloth seats.
From what I understand, they basically made 65 of each color car and then swapped panels between them based on a specific pattern so that no two touching elements are the same.
It’s reported that dealers hated the Harlequin Golfs because they didn’t sell. To make matters worse, Volkswagen randomly selected dealers that would have to take up to two of these and Jim Ellis Volkswagen in Georgia famously got four or five of them, reportedly because the company wanted attention during the 1996 Atlanta Olympic games.
One year earlier, Volkswagen made Harlequin Polo hatchbacks for the European market. And there were a lot more of those, probably around 3,800 units. In case you don’t know, the Polo is a smaller hatchback, a subcompact if you will.
The idea of the rainbow-colored car actually comes from the 1960s. Volkswagen wanted to promote the fact that Beetle parts were interchangeable and printed an ad where the panels came from different model years. This proved that Beetle parts were easy to get and thus this was a cheaper car to own compared to American models, some of which were being updated almost every year.
