There are no actual polar axes in MATLAB 6.5.1 (R13SP1) and earlier versions. The polar plot is created with a patch object representing the background, and multiple line and text objects used to create the grid lines and labels, respectively. These objects exist in an axes, whose "Visible" property has been set to "off".
You can remove the labels and grid lines from a polar plot by locating their handles with the FINDALL function, and using the DELETE function to remove them.
p = polar((0:99)*pi/100, (0:99)/100);
h = findall(gcf,'type','line');
h(h == p) = [];
delete(h);
t = findall(gcf,'type','text');
delete(t);
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