13 August 2002: Volkswagen Brazil has introduced a locally-built Polo with a 79bhp one-litre 16-valve engine. It’s aimed at a strong market in the region in the low-tax 'popular car' segment. The new version is produced in São Bernardo do Campo city, São Paulo state, on the same assembly line as 1.6 and two-litre models Polos.

The engine was originally developed for the VW Gol (that's right, no 'f'), a car sold in South America below the Polo, which approximately relates to Fiat's Palio. And there's a turbocharged version outputting a howling 112bhp.

Now THERE's a thought for a fun Polo that would be road tax- and insurance-friendly.

The interesting thing is that in Ireland we could equally do with the 1-litre in our tax regime, and it would provide substantially more punch than do either of the 1.2-litre 3-cylinder units (55 & 65bhp) or the 1.4-litre petrol (75bhp) and 1.4- and 1.9-litre diesels (75 and 64bhp) here.

And we wonder too what a 2-litre Polo goes like? Stink, probably.

VW Gol (that's right, no 'f')