The Infamous Yugo: A Car that Defied Logic and Became a Big Hit

You get good cars, you got bad cars. Then you got the worst car ever. One vehicle that has landed itself on the bottom of the beat pile time and time again is the ultra-cheap Eastern European hatchback that became the butt of every bad late-night joke and still remains a punchline to this day - Let's jump the bridge.

But we're in a Yugo. (Car engine revving) (Car crashing)

What country is this car from? It no longer exists. Put it in age. Today, we're gonna talk about the infamous Yugo. Like a lot of awful things, it came to us in the 80s. But despite its bad rap, the Yugo was not a total failure.

It defied logic, surpassed expectations and even broke some sales records. So let's find out why the world's worst car was actually a huge success.

The Yugo was a no-frills potato of a car that many describe as a glorified lawnmower. It had cheap price with even cheaper construction. So how did this communist-era car become such a big hit in Reagan's capitalist America?

To find out we're gonna have to go back to the start of it all, Genesis.

The Yugo's name comes from the former country of Yugoslavia, which is now Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia and a few other smaller countries. The Yugo was born in the town of Kragujevac, Kragu, Kragujevac, Krah-goo-yeah-vats. Sorry if I mispronounced that.

After World War II, Zastava continued to build Jeeps but was looking to get into the production car market. They were able to work out a deal with Fiat and bought licenses to produce Fiat models in Kragujevac under the Zastava name.

In the late 1970s, they designed their own version of the Fiat 127 called the Yugo. And by 1980, it officially went into production. In terms of design, the powertrain and chassis of the Yugo was identical to the decade-old Fiat 127. The body and interior though were different and they were not an upgrade.

Arguably more important that the Yugo's geographical birthplace is the political environment in which it was born into. The post-Stalin Soviet Bloc was a communist union and automobiles were an ideologically complex aspect of communist life. Having a car played into the same individualism that the leaders in power fought against but they were also an important sector of technological advancement that the Soviet Bloc so desperately needed to catch up to the capitalist first world.

As kind of a compromise, the cars that came out of this area and era were made to be totally utilitarian. Like everything made in the Soviet Union, they were made to be functional, not flashy. And they're made at a bare minimum cost. The Zastava factory worked differently from factories in the States.

During a tour of the Zastava factory, Yugo America's product planner, Tony Seminara, recalled a quote:

"You have a Za-sta-va, just saying that."

During a tour of the Zastava factory, Yugo America's product planner, Tony Seminara, also mentioned that during his visit to the factory, he was told about the company's history and how they built their cars.

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en- You get good cars, you got bad cars.Then you got the worst car ever.One vehicle that has landed itselfon the bottom of the beaterpile time and time again.It's the ultra cheapEastern European hatchbackthat became the butt ofevery bad late-night jokeand still remains a punchline to this day.- Let's jump the bridge.- But we're in a Yugo.(car engine revving)(car crashing)- What country is this car from?- It no longer exists. Put it in age.- Today, we're gonna talkabout the infamous Yugo.Like a lot of awful things,it came to us in the 80s.But despite its bad rap, theYugo was not a total failure.It defied logic, surpassed expectationsand even broke some sales records.So let's find out whythe world's worst carwas actually a huge success.(logo whooshing)The Yugo was a no-frills potato of a carthat many describe asa glorified lawnmower.It had cheap price witheven cheaper construction.So how did this communistera car become such a big hitin Reagan's capitalist America?To find out we're gonna have to go backto the start of it all, Genesis.(upbeat rock music)♪ I can feel it ♪The Yugo's name comes from theformer country of Yugoslavia,which is now Croatia, Bosnia, Serbiaand a few other smaller countries.The Yugo was born inthe town of Kragujevac,Kragu, Kragujevac, Krah-goo-yeah-vats.Sorry if I mispronounced thatfrom the loins of a firm called Zastava,a company that manufactured cannons, gunsand military vehicles.After World War II, Zastavacontinued to build Jeepsbut was looking to get inthe production car market.They were able to workout a deal with Fiatand bought licenses to produceFiat models in Kragujevacunder the Zastava name.In the late 1970s, theydesigned their own versionof the Fiat 127 called the Yugo.And by 1980, it officiallywent into production.In terms of design, thepowertrain and chassis of the Yugowas identical to the decade-old Fiat 127.The body and interiorthough, were differentand they were not an upgrade.Arguably more importantthat the Yugo's geographical birthplaceis the political environmentin which it was born into.The post-Stalin SovietBloc was a communist unionand automobiles were anideologically complex aspectof communist life.Having a car played intothe same individualismthat the leaders in power fought againstbut they were also an important sectorof technological advancementthat the Soviet Bloc so desperately neededto catch up to the capitalist first world.As kind of a compromise,the cars that came outof this area and erawere made to be totally utilitarian.Like everything made in the Soviet Union,they were made to befunctional, not flashy.And they're made at a bare minimum cost.The Zestava factory worked differentlyfrom factories in the States.The luxury and optionsavailable in American carswere seen as frivolous and unnecessary.During a tour of the...(electronic scratching)It's hard to say theZa-sta-va, just saying that.During a tour of the Zastava factory,Yugo America's productplanner, Tony Seminara,recalled a quote, "Theplace was humongous.But it was also filthy. I mean the floorwas two inches thick withgrease from the press shop."It was like no one's kitchen.He also said that he saw workers quote,"Manhandling raw sheet metaland putting damaged partsonto finished cars."The idea of craftsmanshipwasn't at the heart of the factory.It was cheap labor made by peoplethat probably didn'thave cars of their own.This is how many cars werebuilt in the Soviet Union.The Yugo made perfect sensefor the place and the time.So why and how did theYugo come to America?The Yugo's arrival to theAmerican automotive marketwas the result of a perfectstorm of circumstances.So let's set the scene, okay?It's the early 1980sand capitalism is in fullforce in Reagan's America.You had Michael Douglas was on Wall Streetsaying greed was good.Everybody had big shoulderpads for some reason,gold-plated DeLoreanswere available to purchasein the back of "SkyMall".Things were good, sort of.The free market is in fashion, all right?Fortunes are made and lostin the blink of an eye.After suffering two gas shortages,Americans purchased foreigncars in record numbersbecause these things were better, okay.They were better on gas andjust had better build quality.Most of these cars were smalleconomy cars from Japan.So in order to avoid an import cap,Japan enacted a "voluntaryexport constraint,"which meant they'd be sendingway fewer cars to the States.To get the most buck for their bang,they shifted export focus to higher-endmid-sized luxury sedans,and that's where brands like Acura, Lexusand Infiniti came into the picture.This left a huge gaping Yugo-shaped holein the American small carmarkets. Simultaneously,an American oil companycalled Occidental Petroleumhad just signed a countertrade deal with Yugoslavia.The deal basically saidthat the United Stateswould give Yugoslavia oilin exchange for pretty much,whatever they could make thatthey thought would sell wellin the U.S. It was a real loosey gooseyinternational trade deal andit laid the perfect groundworkfor a new fun Yugoslavianimport to step into the scene.Like when an exchangestudent comes to your schooland he's like really handsome. He partys.Along came man with amission, Mr. Malcolm Bricklin.He was a businessman withan unconventional careerand a reputation forbringing companies backfrom the brink of extinction.He founded Subaru ofAmerica after the failureof the Subaru 360 micro car. A K-carthat looked like a Citroenhad a baby with a Beetle.Then one fateful day in 1984,Malcolm was walking a London streetwhen he spotted a Yugo45. The idea struck himlike an entrepreneurial bolt of lightning.He would bring this littlecommunist car that couldn'tto the United States and sellit to the car-hungry massesat an egregiously low price.So in 1985, after a series of setbacksthat were quite frankly inevitable,the Yugo finally made itto U.S. shores. Would theAmerican consumer buy the Yugo?Would it be a success?Or would it flop likethe Subaru 360 before it?Well, let's just say thatwhen Yugo hit the market,people went into a mania.Yugo Mania.On August 25th 1985, the Yugo debutedin 50 Northeastern dealershipsfor the jaw dropping priceof $3,990.Which is about $9,600 today.That was about half the priceof any other cheap new cararound that time. Many dealers promoted itwith a financing deal of$99 down and $99 a month.That's like cheaper than theNissan version Note todayand much, much didier. Andconsumers, they did consumein a frenzy like a bunchof piranas chewing upa cranberry that fell into the Marsh.People lined up at thedealerships in stupid numbers.The Boston WashingtonCorridor completely sold out.Americans bought 1050 Yugos in one day.People waited months fortheir Yugos to be delivered.It was truly Yugo mania.It was an actual cultural phenomenonlike Beaver fever or Nolanmadness and that comes next year.For the next six months,the media was saturatedwith headlines andcommercials for the Yugo.It was a perfect firstcar for new drivers.The perfect second car for families.A magnet for bargain hunters.Heck if I was around in 1985,I might have bought one toobut I wasn't. I'mobviously very, very young.The Yugo sold like hotcakesand became the fastestselling European import everin the United States but thenpeople started driving them.(woman screaming)And it didn't take longfor Americans to realizewhy the Yugo was cheap.Quite frankly, it sucked.It was slow, unreliable and unsafe.The Yugo quickly gained the reputationas the worst car ever.And it became the butt of many dad jokesof which I will deliver.What do you call a Yugowith a flat tire? Totaled.How do you double the value ofa Yugo? Fill up the gas tank.What comes free with everyYugo? A bus schedule.I would go on but allthose jokes have agedjust as well as the Yugo itself.Anyway, the Yugo couldn't recoverfrom its horrible reputation.And Yugo of America folded in 1992.RIPSo let's take a closer lookat what exactly makesthe Yugo so terrible.The thing that made the Yugoso enticing was that it was oneof the cheapest cars youcould buy but you knowwhat they say, "You get what you pay for."And that rang especiallytrue for the Yugo.It was very cheaplymade. From the outside,it actually doesn't look too bad.It was similar in designto other hatchbacksof the 80s like the Golf or the Fiesta.But if you're ever luckyenough to get inside oneof these things, you're gonnasee a ton of flimsy plastic,exposed bolts, fasteners and wiresand very cheap upholstery.The base model only has two air vents,no glove box and a radiothat comes without pre-sets.That's right. The Yugo forcesyou to manually channel surfwhile you're driving.The steering wheelcontrols look like piecesof plastic cutlery.The door locks are made of loosely placed,pac-man shaped pieces. And youdon't even get cup holders.There's no arm rest. There's no frills.And that's just theinterior. Under the hood,the Yugo boasts a 1.1liter four cylinder engine.The spare tire sitsright next to the engine.And the spare tire itself isa bit larger than the engine.It has something like 40 horsepower.The car creeps from zeroto 60 in 14 seconds.The suspension on the Yugowas almost non-existent.It was difficult to steer andit couldn't get up most hills.In 1986 J.D. Power andAssociates rated it dead lastin consumer satisfaction.And when crash tested by theInstitute for Highway Safety,the Yugo crumpled likea jackoline in December.It was all around crappybut for all its crappiness,for all its flaws,I still consider the Yugoa considerable success.And here's why. Quitefrankly by the numbers,this car was a success.Don't get me wrong.The Yugo definitely earns its spotin the Hoopty Hall of Fame.But considering how smallthe dealership network was,its first year sales wereastounding and record breaking.During its eight year runin the American marketalmost 140,000 units sold.And it did all that despitebeing a communist car soldin Reagan's America.It's buzz overcame anti-Soviet sentimentand capitalized on awhole country's obsessionwith consumerism. Salesaside, the quick riseand even faster fall of the Yugowas a historical cultural phenomenon.It was such an automotiveanomaly that it inspired artand spawned a cultfollowing. Kevin O'Callahan,artist and teacher at the NewYork School of Visual Artswas inspired when he saw some kidson the street playing baseballand using a broken downYugo as a backstop.Its transformation from treasureto trash sparked the ideafor the famous art exhibit.Yugo Next. He and hisstudents collected Yugosand transformed them intoan array of non-car items.He turned them into foosballtables, cigarette lighters,slot machines andtelephones. The whole ideaof the exhibit was tomake something usefulout of something use less.Now I'm no expert butthat's a pretty good art.And it came from this bad, bad part.Yugo Next is just one of themany ways the Yugo has sunk ininto our collective consciousness.For such a failure, it's pretty famous.I mean, we're stilltalking about it today.There's a Bosnian bandwith a song about it.A Viennese rapper who usesit as his whole brand.There are countless YouTube videosthat spew their affectionateodds to the Yugo.They're loyal subscribers.It's a cult classic,cool story and a symbol ofcountry that no longer exists.So yeah, the Yugo was a success.The same way that The Room was a successor Tubthumping by Chumba Wamba or crocs.People love to hate the Yugo.It's so bad that it'sgood and at any rate,we're still talking about it. 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