Click to enlarge

Volkswagen actually has a sedan variant of the Polo called the Volkswagen Polo Classic, and it has been in existence ever since the first generation Polo which had its sedan counterpart called the Volkswagen Derby.

Production bases of the current Polo Classic are located in Brazil, South Africa and China. Australia receives the Polo Classic from the base in China, and the model is the first right hand drive Chinese-manufactured car to be exported to a “developed country”.

In the South African market, it is available with three petrol engines (1.4 with 83hp, 1.6 with 100hp and 2.0 with 114hp) and one turbodiesel, the 1.9 TDI (100hp, 240Nm). Volkswagen plans to introduce it in the Indian market soon, probably with a 1.4 TDI engine like the Fabia that is offered there.

Cars such as the Polo Classic sedan are important for car manufacturers as with rising global fuel prices, more and more customers are downsizing their vehicle choices in terms of size, and for sedan-centric markets this means sedan vehicles have to be developed for vehicle segments that have been traditionally filled with hatchbacks. When a sedan model is planned as part of the model line-up from the beginning the vehicle can end up looking very good, like the Mazda 2 sedan.