PoloDriver

The Polo has once again been crowned ‘Best Small Car’ at the 2011 Fleet News Awards, with the larger Golf retaining its ‘Best Lower Medium Car’ title from last year. Presented at a ceremony at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel, honouring the fleet industry’s top achievers for the past 12 months, the judging panel was made up of fleet industry experts, in addition to senior members of the Fleet News editorial team.

Commenting on the winning cars, the judges said: ‘A broad range of engines with low-CO2 choices and a choice of three door and five door models make the Polo appealing to fleets and drivers.’ Cars were judged on a range of criteria, including operating costs (depreciation, fuel, servicing, maintenance and repair, lease rates, tax liability), suitability for their use as business cars and the level of support from the manufacturers and their corporate sales teams. For more information, visit Volkswagen’s fleet website.

We’ve been doing subtle improvements to the site over the last few days, one of which means that PoloDriver.com is now mobile device enabled. If you have an Apple or other mobile device, the reconfigured site should now display ‘natively’ as an app-type website, making content much easier to navigate. The front page displays a list of the most recent posts, while each individual post can be read by clicking on it. At the bottom of each entry are buttons for sending with a friend, posting to Twitter, or sharing on Facebook. At the top of the display is an arrow, which drops down to show RSS feed links as well as category and tag navigation. We think it’s a worthwhile improvement – let us know what you think.

The PoloDriver.com widget is still available, too. If you’re a Polo driver and a Mac user, you can now get all the latest PoloDriver.com news direct to your desktop. Built to run on OS X 10.4 and above and to sit in Dashboard, the widget displays the latest headlines directly in its built-in viewer when it detects an internet connection. Using the widget is easy. Click on the headline or read the introductory paragraph and then follow the ‘Read More’ link to go to the website for the full story. The article length can be made shorter or longer by clicking on the ‘i’ at the bottom right of the viewer, and can be set to show the full text of each article if so desired. If you’re non-RSS and Twitter-enabled but still want to catch up with all the news on PoloDriver.com, download the desktop widget from here, open the zip file and install.

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Volkswagen has extended its value for money, £500 off, competitive finance package for new Polo models until 14 April 2011. Enticing buyers into showrooms, there’s also three years’ free servicing and free insurance*. As an example, the entry-level Polo S 1.2-litre 60 PS three-door model costs just £9,495, including £500 off. With Volkswagen Finance’s Solutions PCP package, monthly payments are from £99 per month – including up to three years’ or 30,000 miles free servicing (7.9% representative APR). One year’s free insurance is included for drivers over 21 years of age.

This offer applies to all Polo models purchased from stock through a Volkswagen UK Retailer and registered before 14 April 2011. If a customer chooses an alternative funding method, the standalone servicing package is available for £299. For full details and term and conditions, visit your nearest Volkswagen Retailer, call 0800 333 666 or visit www.volkswagen.co.uk/polo. Volkswagen UK sold 45,282 new Polos last year, marking 2010 as the model’s best-selling year since 2003.

*Terms and conditions apply. Available to retail customers only and available on Polo models from stock. £500 off excludes GTI and BlueMotion. Free insurance available until 14 April 2011 from Volkswagen Insurance for drivers over 21 years, excludes Northern Ireland and BlueMotion and GTI models. Volkswagen Insurance is sold, underwritten and administered by Allianz Insurance PLC.

[Source: Volkswagen UK]

Not content with the Polo Vivo sweeping allcomers in the South African new car sales charts, Volkswagen wants the same in the world of motorsport. Its star of the 2011 national rally championship will be the brand new Polo Vivo rally car, which, as tradition dictates, is lime green in colour, reflecting BP’s Ulimate fuel branding. All Polo Vivo S2000s feature the new body work of the Polo Vivo road car modified for the rough and tumble rally stages, while new technical specifications lie beneath the flared wheelarches and spoilers. With six consecutive national rally championship titles the BP Volkswagen Rally team is ready to start the 2011 season with a two-day, 14-stage round in KwaZula Natal, beginning on Friday 25 March.

Launching the latest generation of its Polo S2000 rally car, Volkswagen Motorsport also announced changes to the team for the new season. 2010 championship title holders Enzo Kuun and Guy Hodgson stay for 2011, as do 2009 winners Hergen Fekken and Pierre Arries. National champion Jan Habig will be partnered by newcomer Robert Paisley. In the fourth car will be South African Dakar competitor Giniel de Villiers, who will team up with co-driver Ralph Pitchford. The team has high expectations of the new car and in early season testing, it appears more than capable of satisfying the challenging demands of the upcoming events. The BP S2000 Polos will face strong competition from the outset of the season, with class rivals the Ford Fiestas, the new Peugeot 207 entries and traditional rivals, Toyota, all vying for top honours.

[Source: Volkswagen Motorsport // Images: mcondon@motorpics]

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Batting for the IPL (from left to right): Neeraj Garg, Member of Board and Director, Volkswagen Passenger Cars, Volkswagen Group Sales India Pvt Ltd; IPL CEO Sunder Raman; Lutz Kothe, Head of Marketing and PR Volkswagen Group Sales Pvt Ltd

Volkswagen Group India has launched the IPL limited edition of its Polo-based saloon, the Vento. Celebrating the fourth season of the Indian Premier League cricket series, the special model will go on sale from 8 April. The Vento IPL Edition features ‘IPL’ badging on its body, door sills and floor mats. The first unique limited edition model for Volkswagen Group India, the IPL also boasts a colour touchscreen multimedia player (mirco-SD, mini-USB, MP3 and WMA supported) with satellite-navigation, leatherette seats and a rosta of specially-branded accessories, which includes a cricket set. The Vento IPL Edition will cost from Rs 7.24-lakh, ex-showroom, New Delhi. The full Volkswagen Group India press release follows.

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