Man somehow made one of Volkswagen’s rarest cars from the 1990s even rarer

If you spotted a Volkswagen Golf in the photo and wondered how this could be a rare car, let us clarify — the VW Golf itself wasn’t rare — it was the opposite of that, actually — but the German automaker once created a limited-edition variant for the United States called the Mk3 Golf Harlequin.

Inside, it was just your regular Golf, but on the outside, it looked like the car came right out of a circus.

Its distinct appearance with four different colors made it stand out, which is why it was rare, sort of.

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Why the Volkswagen Golf Harlequin was special

The Golf Harlequin was a four-door hatchback, but all four doors were a different color.

It may sound absurd, but anything with a ‘limited edition’ tag can do wonders.

Unlike the 2025 VW Golf R, which has a massive infotainment tablet, the older generation Golf was a sentimental hatchback.

Because of the Golf’s popularity, many people – including celebrities – got one.

Mark Zuckerberg apparently owns a newer-gen Golf R even today.

Volkswagen only created 264 of these back in the 1990s, and Jim Ellis – who had dealerships of his own – got some of them to sell.

However, he tried experimenting by painting these cars in just one color.

Yes, he took the only thing that differentiated the Golf Harlequin from a regular Golf, but he didn’t do it to make it more attractive.

Rare VW Golf became rarer

Before Ellis could sell out all the cars in his inventory, not many people wanted to buy a Harlequin anymore.

This is why he took the remaining eight cars he had and painted all of them in different but single colors.

It wasn’t ideal, but then again, these cars had the ‘rare’ charm to attract buyers.

Further, he finally sold the eight models, and nobody ever heard about these eight cars again.

That is, until a few months ago.

As The Drive discovered, one of these cars painted in Chagall Blue recently surfaced and was available to buy on Facebook Marketplace.

The listing mentioned that the seller was its second owner, and the Chagall Blue Harlequin had 143,000 miles.

It was also the 123/264 car, so there’s even more appeal.

Moreover, the seller mentioned that he took this model to Jim Ellis, who reportedly told him that it was the only Chagall Blue Harlequin to ever exist.

Ultimately, this is one of the rarest Volkswagen models, which was transformed to become even rarer and is now rarer because of its unique blue color out of other unique colors.

It certainly is a long stretch, but some VW fans would jump at the opportunity of getting one of these.