The Ardèche department of France is essentially split up into two parts. The first part is a popular tourist destination where nature-lovers go to hike, kayak and mountain bike, while the second part is very rural and it looks like it hasn’t changed in over a quarter of a century. You can likely guess which part we prefer, and in which part we found the second-gen Polo pictured below.
Stickers on the Polo’s windshield indicate that it hasn’t been on the road since the early 2000s, and we have every reason to believe it’s been parked in this exact spot since. It looks like the Polo was in rough shape before it was parked and time has not been kind to it. The picture isn’t much brighter in the cockpit, which is full of glass shards, moss, mold and leaves courtesy of a broken driver-side window.
The car is on private property and it’s far removed from the nearest town, so we’re willing to wager it’s not going anywhere anytime soon. It’ll be interested to revisit this car in a decade and see what shape it’s in then.
Its funny the breadvan Polo was much maligned for having too little power and poor brakes but they were a durable machine – I guess most were scrapped because the next gen was better – sold in greater numbers so was available 2ndhand and in the modern world old is seldom thought of as better – sadly
i wonder why the owner did not try to part the car out?
No time/interest, I imagine. Plus, I don’t think very many people need mk2 Polo parts out there.
I guess this part of Ardèche where you shot it should be close to Haute-Loire (numbered 43 on the plate) 🙂
Good eye!