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Revision as of 20:54, 12 November 2004

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 former Yugoslavia still existed, it was also exported to the American market.

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.

File:Yugocar.jpg
Yugo car

Zastava still sells cars in Europe under both the Zastava and Yugo brand names, but the production is less then 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.

History

Introduced in the summer of 1986 at a price of $3,990, it was by far the lowest-priced new car available in the USA at the time, and it sold very well at first. However, it soon developed a notorious reputation for being unreliable, and sales declined rapidly. In 1991, Zastava withdrew the car from the U.S. market when severe restrictions were placed on trade with Yugoslavia because of the human-rights violations of its then-current government.

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, which required the use of a high-grade motor oil designed for motorcycles to run properly. The failure of many Yugo owners to use the proper oil was one real problems of Yugos.

When the car first appeared in the American market, it sold so well that GM and Hyundai declared it as a major threat, and started marketing campaigns to make the public think that this car was a waste and could not compare with their exponentially higher priced colleagues. False and wildly unlikely stories such as "it was so fragile that a pencil could be used to puncture the hull" started to appear.

Despite its reputation, is described by some of its owners as a reliable car. Some individual Yugos appear to work fine while others are dogged by problems, suggesting that the Yugo's problems were caused not by major flaws in the original design but by poor quality control as well as it being generally obsolete.

In a nutshell, the Yugo could be compared to many Eastern bloc products which were inexpensive to build. Also, Yugo's design dates back to 1980 and has not had major modifications since.

Although the butt of many jokes even today, the Yugo, like other cars of the Communist era such as the Lada and East German Trabant, is a popular collectors' item.

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. It has appeared in the following works:

External links

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