5 March 1975: Volkswagen Polo production begins
The Volkswagen Polo celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2025, and there is a reason to celebrate today. On 5 March 1975, production of the Polo began at VW’s Wolfsburg plant. The almost identical Audi 50 was already rolling off Wolfsburg’s production lines, having been launched in August 1974.
Volkswagen’s headquarters site at Wolfsburg would be the sole production home of the Polo until 1984, when the small VW began to be assembled in SEAT’s plant at Pamplona in Spain. This became the site most synonymous with Polo production, the last model coming off the lines in July 2024 after a 40-year run.
The picture above is said to be one of the first, if not the first, image of the new small VW of the Seventies, and the car that completed Volkswagen’s then-new water-cooled line-up. The Polo wouldn’t be seen in public until its launch at the 1975 Geneva motor show around two weeks after the start of production, but the car had been mooted to arrive for several months before. In a synchronistic twist, Volkswagen will unveil the concept version of its ID 1 electric car later today, which, like the first-generation Polo, will be the smallest car in the Volkswagen family.
In this 50th anniversary year, we’ll have more posts on notable dates and models, but for now, head to our heritage pages to learn more about the history of the Polo, and in particular, how the first-generation Polo arrived as a cut-price version of the Audi 50, outliving its more expensive relative by four years. Happy production birthday, Polo!
