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The Yugo was a subcompact car for the American market made by the Zastava automobile works in Kragujevac, Yugoslavia, 40 miles south of Belgrade, between 1986 and 1991. The car's design was very similar to the Fiat 128 sold in the USA during the 1970s, and was the product of a long-standing working agreement between Zastava and Fiat, a major Italian car maker.
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 (that was not necissarily true) 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.
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 of very few of the Yugo's problems.
A curious quality is that the Yugo, despite its reputation, is often described by owners as a very 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 design flaws but by poor quality control.
Zastava still sells cars in many countries of Europe under both the Zastava and Yugo brand names.
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 developed a reputation as being very unreliable and dangerous. This belief; however, was totally unaccurate as it is currently being imported world wide and surrpassing quality checks. When It first appeared in the American market, it sold so well, that GM and Hundai say it as a major threat. Large campagnes were started to bmake the public feel that this car was a waste and could not compare with their exponentially higher priced colleagues. False stories such as "it was so fragile that a pencil could be used to puncture the hull" started to appear, even though for that to be true, the Americans in charge of YUGO quality check would have to be total fools to let such a car pass. In a nutshell, the YUGO can be compared to the AK-47. Its far better than the M-16 and is a far simpler item to built.
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