Yugo.
The Yugo is a subcompact car made by the Zastava automobile works in Kragujevac, Serbia and Montenegro, 40 miles south of Belgrade.
Between 1986 and 1991, while the former Yugoslavia still existed, it was also imported into the American market by Yugo America , a company founded by Malcolm Bricklin.
The car's design was very similar to the Fiat 127, a popular model of the early 1970s, and was the product of a long-standing working agreement between Zastava and Fiat, a major Italian car maker.
Zastava still sells cars in Europe under both the Zastava and Yugo brand names, but the production is less than 1000 a year (as of 2004). The Yugo models have included Yugo 45, Yugo 55, Yugo 65, Yugo Koral, Yugo Tempo, Yugo Cabrio, etc. Zastava has produced over 750,000 Yugo cars since the introduction of the series in 1980. Their Florida line of cars also evolved from the Yugo design.
U.S. History
Introduced in the summer of 1986 at a price of less than $4000, it was by far the lowest-priced new car available in the USA at the time, and it sold very well at first. But its quality led Consumer Reports to call it "one of the worst cars [the magazine had] ever tested." By the early 1990s, Yugo America floundered and Zastava withdrew the car from the U.S. market due to severe restrictions placed on trade with Yugoslavia because of the alleged involvement of its then-current government in the Yugoslav wars.
In the United States, Yugo developed a reputation as being very unreliable and dangerous, despite the fact it passed quality checks upon import.
Three models of Yugo were sold in the United States: the basic GV model, a hatchback version, and the Cabrio, a convertible. All shared a high-compression 67 horsepower (50 kW) engine designed by Fiat. The fact that the engine required the use of a high-grade motor oil designed for motorcycles is reported to have caused problems for Yugo owners.
Bricklin signed a deal with Zastava in 2002 to bring back the Yugo, a model tentatively called the ZMW at the time. Zastava Motor Works USA, his company, expected to sell 60,000 cars in 2003. The plan failed.
The Yugo in fiction
The Yugo's reputation as a lemon has survived in fiction long after the cars were still sold in the United States:
Movies:
Novels:
External links
