Yes, they repeatedly said they have six '16 cars on offer to rent in 2017. They want to rent cars, it's their new focus.

Also overall it's now a bit more clear to me what they want to do. Essentially they won't close the department but instead focus it purely to customer service, similar to what they're doing with Audi. So essentially they're turning an investment and r&d department supported by marketing and r&d budget into a service department for customers that will make them money. So I expect we will see some '16 Polo's for the next couple of years and then a bunch of R5's.

The question is if anyone can come up with a deal to run the '17 cars in a similar way. I guess it depends if it's just financial or logistic. Focusing the team on servicing '16 cars and producing R5s may not leave enough people available to run the '17 cars. The scenario in which this works is quite complex with many parts needing to come together:
you need a sponsor: eg. Qatar/Al-Attiyah or Red Bull
you need manpower: VW diverting people from other projects, or an outside team like PH Sport did for Citroen
drivers: if Ogier does go to M-Sport or Citroen and JML to Toyota, just leaves Mikkelsen as a top driver available

it's a bit of a fairytale scenario