1 VW Polo WRC

Result: 30.7%

It is rare that a rally car will win more than 80% of all the events it enters. Rallying can throw all kinds of obstacles at the drivers with tricky terrain and four seasons in one event. Building a machine that can withstand all of that on a ratio of four events out of every five is something unmatched in the sport.

The Polo’s first stage win was on its very first appearance in the WRC in Monte Carlo in 2013 with Sebastien Ogier at the controls and its final stage win was in its final appearance in Australia in 2016 in the hands of event winner Andreas Mikkelsen.

The six-speed 1.6-litre turbocharged hatchback won on 43 occasions and made Frenchman Ogier a four-time

World Rally Championship title winner.

The boffins at Volkswagen weren’t done there, and perhaps the biggest shame for fans was that the VW Polo GTI WRC never made its competitive debut. The regulations were overhauled in 2017 to offer engineers more freedom and to ramp up the pace of the frontrunners. The German engineers had been ahead of the curve and had already been out testing its new machine, fitted with a central differential. World title winner Marcus Gronholm had done much of the legwork with the Polo GTI, only for the emissions scandal which struck the firm to wipe out all the impetus behind VW’s motorsport programmes.

A privately-run Polo R did compete in national events in Austria while some of the early chassis were converted into cars to contest the World Rallycross Championship. Johan Kristoffersson has used a Polo to claim three WRX titles.