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What Do You Know the Yugo?

Think of car humor: the Yugo might be the first vehicle to come to mind. “How do you double a Yugo’s value?” comedians would often ask a captive audience. Answer: “Fill the gas tank.”
 
Built by Zastava Motors, a former arms manufacturer, the Yugo was produced in the former nation of Yugoslavia. The small car, also called Zastava Koral, was known by many for being cheap, ugly and poorly engineered.
 
At Hendrick Collision Jimmie Johnson Chevrolet, some of us are old enough to remember seeing Yugos in San Diego, CA way back in the early 1980s, so that's why we're psyched to be sharing this piece of history with you.
 
The first Yugo, manufactured in 1977, was a version of the Fiat 127, and had a modified body style. The vehicles were sold in the United States from 1985-1992 by Malcolm Bricken. The U.S. businessman and founder of Subaru was known for importing vehicles. Yugo America sold entry-level Yugos in the mid-1980s for $3,990. They were marketed as cars that fit into everyone’s life and used the tagline: "Everybody Needs A Yugo Sometime."
 
A total of 141,651 were sold in the United States, according to reports. Bricken sold his interest in the hatchback in the early 1990s.
 
Critics complained of Yugo’s use of old technology, issues of reliability and reported maintenance issues.
 
The vehicle performed poorly in federal crash tests and in 1986, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reported that the 2,320 pound Yugo received the worst scores of four vehicles tested. 
 
The front-wheel drive subcompact vehicle was ridiculed in the U.S. by TV shows and car magazines. It was often called one of the worst cars of the 1980s. In 2000, NPR's Car Talk called it one of the worst cars of the millennium. Meanwhile, defenders of the Yugo said that with regular maintenance, the vehicles could be trouble-free.
 
A book written in 2010 by Jason Vuic, The Yugo: The Rise and Fall of the Worst Car in History, chronicles what Amazon describes as “The short and unpleasant life of the car, the men who built it, the men who imported it, and the decade that loved it and promptly discarded it, is rollicking and astounding, and one of the greatest untold business-cum-morality tales of the 1980s.”
 
Out of the nearly 795,000 cars produced, 250,000 were exported to other countries. Production of the Yugo ended in 2008. Due to their price and simplicity, Yugo’s are still popular in Serbia today with nearly 60,000 vehicles reportedly in use. Over the years, the vehicles have also been included in many films and TV series. 
 
Sources: Forbes, Wikipedia and TIME
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