posted at the Cohort by Curtis Perry
I can’t remember how long it’s been since I saw a Yugo. Obviously it was before I started curbsiding in 2009, and given Eugene being what it is, there must have been some around not too far before that date. And this shot by Curtis Perry may be from a few years back too. But it’s time we gave the Yugo a bit of love here.
Jeff Nelson didn’t find much love for it when he wrote the definitive CC article on it here. There’s no question that the whole Yugo experience in the US was a troubled one, and undoubtedly much of that can be blamed on its importer/huckster Malcolm Bricklin. He created expectations that weren’t realistic, and the little Fiat derivative was hampered in its efforts to meet US emission and other standards.
From what I’ve learned over the years, like so many Fiats, it’s actually a much tougher little car than the rep it got. Owners who got to know them and fix them became quite fond of them, and they actually developed a bit of a cult following. But obviously, that’s not what most buyers expecting a cheaper Corolla experienced. Oh well. Malcolm Bricklin’s miserable track record needed burnishing, and the Yugo gave him that opportunity.
There is a Yugo a few miles from me. The owner…or somebody…parked it in their Old Hippie Trailer Park next to their trailer. Two of the tires are flat, weeds tall and small are growing over, under, around and through it. The Yugo is not registered, which is legal because it is on private property. It is used for storage, apparently: the junk inside moves around at intervals, which is as often as I see it.
The Yugo is a laughing stock in the Anglosphere (for whatever reason). But so was Skoda. And look at Skoda now! Skoda nearly wiped off all asians brands off the map in Europe. It took them only 5 years or so, after the fall of the Berlin wall.
Yugo could have played a comparable role from the Balkans to Mideast in the low budget market. Yugo factory was ready to produce a version of VW Polo 6N – for half the price. Only that it did not happen because of the yugoslavian civil war. VW went off and Yugo was doomed
Skoda was purchased by Volkswagen and shares most of its parts and platforms with VW….The Yugo was a cast off from Fiat
@bufguy: Not really cast off, but a very cleverly modified 128 floorpan, shortened by taking out I think about an 8″ lateral section. Having had and loved a 128, I was kinda hot to try out that Yugo, though I was not making even enough for what they were charging. Even had the idea for a line of custom and modification equipment, to be called (of course) Yugo Your Way … I did find a very good one at one of the cheap car lots that used to line Nolensville Road in Nashville, but after finding the money for it – $900-some, I think – I came back to find it gone. But I AM still looking!
I had a 1990 Jetta which I was having repaired by a VW dealear who also sold Yugos. One day while waiting in the crowded service dept a Yugo owner spontainiously burst into a shouting f-bomb laced rant about how crappy his Yogo was for all to hear.. Probably not an isolated incident
There is likely one still up the street from where I work, parked behind a fence. It’s in good company as, last I saw it, it’s with a Torino Squire wagon and a late ’60 Mercedes that’s been planted on a 4×4 truck chassis.
If memory serves, it may even be a convertible.
For some reason, the idea of a convertible engineered and built by Zastava scares me.
The last time I remember seeing a Yugo at all was in the movie “Drowning Mona.”
The last time I’d have seen one in the metal is a great question. All of the ones in central Ohio turned to rust years ago.
Similarly, the last time I saw one was in the HBO Series “True Blood”. One of these was the lead character’s daily driver.**
In the metal? Wow… the mid-nineties maybe? It’s been a long while.
** edit: I stand corrected! Apparently her car was a 2nd Generation Honda Civic.
Probably the last time I saw one was the last time I worked on one-
Back in the nineties, a Yugo landed in the lap of a friend of mine, and together we fixed the obvious issues and put it up for sale. The biggest problem was the ignition switch, which cranked the starter anytime you turned the key to “ON.” This switch design didn’t impress me, but I suspect a former owner overheated the (plastic) switch by continuing to crank the engine when it refused to start.
Once we cleared that up and fixed a couple cosmetic issues, my buddy listed the car in the local paper, expecting little or no response. As I recall, the asking price was around $750.
Amazingly, his phone rang off the hook! Turns out there was a strong Yugo fan base in Denver, many people were familiar with brand, and no one was “scared off” by its reputation.
It’s not a car that excited me, but Paul appears correct- Once you learned all the foibles, Yugos offered relatively entertaining “cheap” transportation.
Back in the 90’s Apple Motors in Denver, CO was pretty well known for their X-1/9 motor swaps into Yugos. They had a regular repair business focusing on Fiat products in particular and parts for the same. In addition, they usually had a small stable of Italian cars for sale. I could not find a website for them via a quick Google search, I don’t know what’s become of them.
I lived in Atlanta in the 90’s and Bayless Fiat was the place to get your Yugo (and Fiat/Lancia) spares. They’ve since relocated to the Columbus, OH area and still restore, modify (to order) and sell used Fiat cars. They get Yugos from time to time and the ones I’ve seen are rather nice.
http://www.midwest-bayless.com
Apple Motors is located in Wheat Ridge (a Denver suburb), about a mile from my buddies house. They had an ignition switch in stock back when I worked on the Yugo, but their price was about 1/3 the value of the car. Instead, I scavenged a switch from a Junkyard Strada (Colorado Auto Parts for the win!).
I visited the area over Christmas, and while the shop was still there, it looks like they are out of the Fiat parts business and most of the property is now a 7-11 store (see pic).
My goodness! I don’t remember the last time I saw a running Yugo, but I do remember one of the first times. My family was visiting my sister in Nashville, and we were meeting her at Star Chrysler-Plymouth-Dodge. While we were waiting at the dealership, there was a new Yugo (this was in 1986) on the floor. The salesman gave us a pretty convincing pitch, as if we were actually going to buy one. The things I remembered most were the pleasing, nobby texture of the cloth interior and its plastic bumpers. (Yes, you read that correctly.)
Not since last decade, maybe even the decade before that. Yup, pretty sure I have not seen one since I moved to Oregon in 2013.
My thoughts, based on conversations with a few people who owned them, and having been deployed to Bosnia in 98-99, is that the issues with the Yugo were that it was a sound but crudely manufactured design, and that as with with many inexpensive cars the owners did minimal servicing, particularly timing belts.
The couple of individuals I knew who owned them in the states really liked them, but they were mechanically oriented. In Bosnia they were everywhere, and all of them seemed to be drivable no matter how worn or battered.
I don’t think I’ve seen a Yugo “in the wild” since I was in high school; there was one parked in a driveway of a house near my school that I passed every day. And I have no idea if that one ran; I only ever saw it parked. That would have been late 1990s.
Probably a few years before that I remember seeing one being driven through the parking lot of a local shopping center. I remember noticing it because it was making all kinds of horrible noises. When I saw it was a Yugo it just confirmed their reputation in my mind.
When was the last time you saw a Hyundai Excel? A Chevette? An Escort Pony?
I saw a Chevette over the weekend. I pointed it out to my Porsche-driving buddy. He was just as entertained to see one as I was.
Well Evan Reisner I might have seen a Hyundai Excel in Coos Bay in January 2019.
It’s been awhile. I cannot think of a Yugo without remembering a woman who worked in an office building where I used to work. She had previously owned two Yugos and loved them. I mean LOVED them. It was the brand new Saturn Vue she bought that she despised.
I recall shopping for a car in Richmond, Virginia when the Yugos were available. I’m having a hard time remembering the primary large brand of the dealership that had them, but I do recall that the Yugos were sharing the row right in front of the showroom with a couple of Bitter SCs.
What ultimately killed the US Yugo exercise was that it would have taken engineering resources unavailable to Zastava to produce a version of that simple engine which could have passed US emissions requirements while using less fuel than a decent compact sedan and keeping up with traffic. Ultimately, they faked the emissions durability testing results and were caught. The cost of recalling all the cars made through 1989 convinced them to flee the US.
Hyundai also entered the bottom of the market during the same period. They also had cars of maligned quality and questionable robustness. The performance was considerably better though, because they started with Mitsubishi mechanicals that were considerably larger displacement and more advanced. The cheap US Yugos were 1.1 liters, while the Excel had 1.5 liter engines. It was much easier to meet emissions standards while maintaining some semblance of drivability with a 1.5 liter engine and a carburetor than with a 1.1 liter/carburetor combination. Even with that advantage, Hyundai’s early days in the US were a boom followed by a bust.
You’ve caught my attention! Got a link or pointer to the emissions test fakery?
I can’t find any reference to emissions fakery, but there was indeed a recall due to emissions non-compliance. Here’s one of several stories that refers to it:
https://www.hemmings.com/blog/article/zastava-yugo/
Cars sold in the US were self-certified as being emissions compliant. The Yugos failed enough tests in states that had actual testing that the calibration of the cars sold to the public was verified by the EPA and found to be excessively dirty. Was it fakery to self-certify cars that weren’t actually in compliance with emissions requirements? I think so. Also, there were standards for emissions equipment durability. The cars had to remain within limits for 50,000 miles at the time, IIRC. Had Yugo performed the tests properly, they probably wouldn’t have had to recall the first 126,000 cars that they sold, and when they did recall them they would have had a solution other than fleeing the country. I believe that the later 1.3 liter injected cars were clean, but they were also much more expensive than people expected Yugos to be and still lacking in a number of ways.
I’ve never actually seen one in the flesh, and I’m nearly 40.
I do occasionally read about the mishaps of the guy on Jalopnik that has one.
Like a Rambler, or most GM products, if you bought it for cheap and had no pretension of it being anything but cheap wheels, and you serviced it on a somewhat regular basis, you got your money’s worth. With minimal things to break, as long as you kept up on the major items, it ran, if not well.
Dacia is another of the eastern block companies that seems to have done well, with Renault using Dacia as their budget/emerging market brand. Perhaps they can bring them over to sell in Nissan dealerships or Mitsubishi dealerships to add new product to either of those lines, who badly need something else to sell. They sell in the UK as the low price leader, much like Hyundai/Kia did until recently, and they look to be a good base to take over that niche.
Last year, actually, when I saw this one. But I don’t count it as a true curbside find, because it was 1) on the grounds of a service station and 2) according to a nearby worker, only used as a movie prop car: so it’s very likely it doesn’t even have an engine in it. A running Yugo? I’ve never seen one, ever, even after keeping my eyes peeled for the last ten years.
Recommended reading: The Yugo, The Rise and Fall of the Worst Car in History, by Jason Vuic.
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2015/02/book-review-yugo-rise-fall-worst-car-history/
I just finished reading it, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Parts of it are hilarious, but among other things, it has a lot of background on the surprising amount of effort that Malcolm Bricklin’s team spent improving the original Jugo 45 to make it marketable in the USA. Bricklin himself didn’t do the work, but he had some devoted people working for him, both here and in Yugoslavia.
I want to second this recommendation – this is a fascinating book that really gives you the hidden background to the public story that was presented to the public at the time.
Oh, interesting. Stands to reason there’d be a book about it. Does it go into detail on the faked emissions type-approval tests CJinSD mentions above?
The last time I saw one driving on the road was in the early Summer of 2011 in Spokane, WA, the last time I saw one parked in a yard was in the Spring of 2016 in Richland, WA, I did a double take whenever I saw both of those cars.
Yugos were never all that common, at least in my portion of Canada. Ladas, Hyundai Ponys, Nissan Micras and to a lessor extent Skodas filled that void here. The last Yugo I saw was in BC maybe a decade ago. The occasional Lada Niva is still about but the others are very rare.
I didn’t know the Yugo made it to BC. I’ve never seen one in Ontario. We received plenty of their Eastern European brethren for a few short years in the 80’s, including Lada, Skoda, and even a few Dacias.
I recall GM’s Roger Smith was pilloried in the press (when the Yugo hype was at its peak) by dismissing the Yugo, saying the typical buyer would prefer a 2 year old Buick for the money. Oh Roger, you missed the point! With the amazing Yugo, people can get a NEW car for $4k, not someone else’s used cast-off!
Turns out Roger was right, a used Buick was far preferable.
Are you quite sure that Smith anecdote involved the Yugo? My recollection is he said there was more value in a 1- or 2-year-old Buick versus a new (and at the time newly-launched) K-car.
I recall reading the comment in the context of a journalists opinion editorial on the Yugo when they were first introduced.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Roger Smith said the same thing about the K-car too.
Good point—it was probably one of his tape loops.
I grew up in St. Thomas, Ontario, there was an orange Yugo at a house on the way to school. That was in 1989. If anyone out there knows, was that the time they were first sold in Canada?
No lie, 1986, on the showroom floor, with a puddle of oil under it.
The problems with the Yugo stem from different mentalities of a typical Western buyer and a typical Soviet-bloc buyer. Behind the Iron Curtain, not only cars, but any consumer product was considered a do-it-yourself kit. In Russia, there are many period jokes about getting out a metal file and completing whatever they didn’t get to at the factory. Things were built to be serviceable and consumers were expected to maintain and service them themselves. Every radio was sold with a printed schematic, every car with an extensive set of tools. It wasn’t much different in Yugoslavia. This is why people who are handy with a wrench can learn to appreciate a Yugo and enjoy keeping one running today. But anyone who simply expected a cheaper Corolla inevitably hated it. The car itself isn’t at fault, it is what it is – a simple machine based on robust Fiat mechanicals. I was in Croatia a few years ago, and there are still plenty of Yugos (Zastavas) running around there today. It just wasn’t a good candidate to have been imported to the USA, and only Bricklin could have thought that it was.
My friend’s dad in the early-mid 90s had one that he eventually replaced with one of those Korean Pontiac LeMans’
Last time I saw one was about fifteen years ago at a used car lot in Southern Oregon. The same lot had an AMC Pacer for sale at the same time – both were running and inspected with clear titles. I begged my wife to let me buy both of them, but to no avail – I already had too many cars at home…
The current wikipedia page on Yugo is good for a chuckle:
Also, cars were usually branded Yugo instead of Zastava during [late 1980s], because the company was taking pride in the (at the time) good sales and reputation established in the export markets, especially in the United States.
I was around in the late 1980s. Yugos NEVER had a good reputation in the United States. Or even close to a good reputation.
And this is what apparently passed for quality control in the early 90s:
Yugos built between June 1991 and early 1996 were built with a variety of “leftover” parts: as an example, getting a car with a blue dashboard and a brown steering wheel, seats that were mismatched in color, and most likely an “American” instrument cluster with speeds printed in MPH rather than km/h, and with written labels like water and oil instead of small drawings, and a seatbelt safety warning light were possible. In some extreme cases, the car would come with different interior panels and a steering wheel from other Zastava products such as the Zastava 750. When exports to United States (and the rest of the world) stopped, a number of federalized Yugos were still left in the factory’s parking lots, and many people got these “American” Yugos instead of the European ones.
If you want your steering wheel color to match the rest of the interior, I guess you can always buy a Toyota if you’re that hung up about quality control…
I haven’t seen a Yugo in about 20 years, although someone around here with a perverse sense of humor turned a Yugo or two into a stretch limousine.
Last time I saw one was in Bosnia in 2016. They weren’t that common goinhg back because it had domestic competition from the Sarajevo-built Golf II – now that car was common, many years after production. My Bosnian friend didn’t like them because to him, they represent the past.
Yugos of all years, right up to 2008, are still very common in Serbia though. Expectations are of course much lower.
Even Homer Simpson wouldn’t buy one! Just watch.
I just indulged in a few minutes’ worth of fantasy about how much less exercise my eye-rolling muscles might get if Malcolm Bricklin had chosen some other career. One with fewer opportunities for collossal, utterly predictable failure. Like…say…being that guy who always wears a helmet and sits in the corner of the classroom making airplane sounds and eating paste.
I think the only time I’ve ever seen a Yugo in the wild and actually running was in or around Parma, Ohio one evening in the autumn of 2017. There can’t be that many left, especially in the Cleveland area, whose environment is especially unkind to automobiles.
I can’t tell you the last time I saw a running Yugo here in the upper midwest; probably in the early 00’s. They were virtually biodegradable here, the last one I saw was very rusty. I don’t know why it didn’t collapse from the rust, apparently the floor pan is a lot tougher than I initially thought.
The last one I saw was about a year ago, which had been parked in the same place since the late 90s. It was actually in pretty decent shape the last time I stopped and looked at it about 5 years ago. The owner of the building that it was parked in front of died and all the contents and buildings were sold off along with the Yugo. Who knows where it is now; there’s a slight chance it could be back on the road, but more likely it’s sitting in a bone yard or has been crushed into a cube already.
I used to see a one regularly in Minneapolis in the late 2000’s and into the early 2010’s. I eventually found where it lived, behind a building near Lake Street and 2nd Avenue. At some point I stopped seeing it anymore. As Yugo’s go, it’s certainly the last one I saw that looked to be someone’s daily driver by a long shot. Especially remarkable, as Minnesota’s climate isn’t that kind to cars.
I checked Google streetview, and found it as late as June 2012. You can see it here:
https://goo.gl/maps/W6XY4Pm2D7aspp46A
Saw one for sale near Saugerties NY about two years ago. Took pics but no access to them at the moment. Wondering if Edward Snitkoff, who I think lives near there, also saw it.
Here she is, better late than never. This is from October 2017.
And:
Good interior!
Oops, here it is:
I saw one that was a daily driver around the Helena, MT area in the early ’00s. Haven’t seen one since
Last time I saw one in the metal here in New Zealand was in the late 1990s. Last one for sale here on line was last year some time.
I didnt even know they were sold here I wasnt here at the time but Ive seen one in the metal and I’m told there are more about.
Talking to a salesman at a Buick dealership that just acquired a Yugo franchise back in the 80’s, I asked how the $4000 Yugo was selling. He said very quietly, that most people who came in planning to buy a Yugo drove off in a used car for similar money. Since taking on a Yugo franchise their used car sales were up significantly.
Don’t remember the last time time I saw one out and about, let alone running. I grew up in southern Indiana and I remember when Sam Swope Pontiac in Louisville KY would give you a Yugo when purchasing a new Pontiac. Sam Swope’s ad slogan-Nobody Walks Away!
The last Yugo I saw was 18 years ago, and that one had obviously been parked a while.
I worked at a Turbo gas station in the early nineties. A bearded eastern European man and his family used to come in for gas in their white Yugo.
He eventually listed it for sale for $1400 with very few kilometers, only three years old. I sort of liked the car but I knew better, having known another guy who said he spent more on fixing his Yugo than he paid for it.
There were a few at an estate sale I attended last summer. Not running, of course.
I didn’t see the Yugos sell–I forced myself to leave before they came up for bid when the Saab 93s and Sonnetts the guy had started selling at tempting prices and I became concerned I might have to bring one of them home.
Early to mid 1990s. By then it was a punch line.
When my wife and I got married in 1990, we lived in a four-plex apartment building in Minneapolis. Our downstairs neighbor had a Yugo (and a scooter). I remember looking at the car and wondering why he bought it. I think he got it new, even. He moved shortly after that and I never did talk to him about it but I was not too impressed by what I saw.
Many years later I was at a gathering of gearheads in St. Paul with a friend of mine and I saw another Yugo. Wondering again why someone would have one of these we went over to look at it. When we looked through the glass of the rear hatch, there sat a huge V-8 engine. We both stared in amazement that someone was able to get the engine to fit and that they even want to do that. I don’t remember much else about it,though. This was many, many years ago.
I see one outside of ATL on Tilly Mill Rd when I drive up to Dunwoody, GA. I don’t think it runs, but it’s at a gas station in plain view from the road; it’s position hasn’t changed since I have been driving by since 2016 (last time was maybe 8 months ago). It’s lifted on a decidedly non-Yugo 4×4 chassis with enormous tires (and very low on air). It’s also pink colored with a sign advertising the gas station.
Saw one about ten years ago in supermarket parking lot not far from my house in suburban Salt Lake City. It was that sick beige-ish yellow that so many of them wore–except that it had one white door. And there’s a dead one in a junkyard across from a local rod and restoration shop. And no–it’s not one of the shop’s candidates for refurbishing.
The only Yugo I ever saw in Australia in my former home town,Traralgon (Victoria),it was most probably a private import from the UK,because on the back window,it showed the original dealer’s name,from Shrewsbury,in the West Midlands of England.
I actually own one and it’s sitting behind my house. Took it on Lemons Rally and it did better than many others for reliability. However, I did have to rebuild the engine due to a timing belt break.
Just waiting to install a new master cylinder and it’ll be good to go again.