both the inlet and outlet holes on the polo rad are on the nearside, how does the rad operate so that the water doesn't take the path ofleast resistance and just drop striaght to the outlet after entering at the inlet?

i guess the ends are split half way, so it has to come in, go across the top half, drop down and back across the bottom half i guess

its a dual pass radiator, as blake says the headers are baffled to that the water passes acros the surface of the rad twice.

Alex,
AFAIK, the Polo is effectively U-shaped. The tank with the hose connections (NS) must two parts. Water flows NS ->OS in the top half of the core, down the full OS tank then OS -> NS in the lower half of the core, into the bottom part of the NS tank & into the bottom hose.
Certainly the top half seems to get hot, then the bottom half, as the warm front progresses.
I didn't poke about in my rad, but probing into the thermoswitch port should reveal the barrier between the top and bottom halves of the NS tank.
Maybe someone has an unfitted Polo rad and can confirm or otherwise.
Just noticed I was beaten to it, but here it is anyway!
HTH
John.

Yup. The offside end box is baffled half way down so that the water is forced to go through the radiator tubes....

BB