They Love the Car That People Love to Hate

The utilitarian Yugo may be the most maligned auto in history, ridiculed for its looks and its (many) flaws. “We really need tougher slander laws in this country,” one Yugo defender says.

[The] Yugo….has been called “hard to view on a full stomach”, …and “something assembled at gunpoint”.

You might go so far as to say it was “an out-and-out vile little car,” as Eric Peters did in his book “Automotive Atrocities”…

Mr. Pierce [we need tougher slander laws] is one of the Yugo’s more assertive fans, who defend the car’s reputation with the overprotective affection usually reserved for pet cats that go blind and three-legged dogs.

😂

Valerie Hansen of Columbus, Ohio… said she was attracted to the Yugo for two reasons. First, it speaks to her ancestral Balkan roots. Second, its mechanical simplicity means she can do her own repairs. “You can fix a Yugo with a butter knife and a rubber band,” she said.

😂

…
The review from the ordinarily staid Consumer Reports verged on cruelty. The engine “struggled and strained to climb highway grades in high gear.” On acceleration, “Our 0-60-m.p.h. run took 18.5 seconds.” The transmission? “Easily the worst we’ve encountered in years.” The interior was “covered with cloth that resembles towel material.”

😂

On the other hand, “it’s easy to turn on the high beams when you’re trying to signal a left turn.”

[Wait, it gets better! Wait till you read what Malcolm Bricklin says today of the Yugo.]

It’s hard to understand why anyone expected more than mere adequacy from the Yugo. It used parts from Fiat, a marque whose reputation for unreliability had led the brand to abandon America in 1983. Fiat, from Italy, was said to stand for “Fix it again, Tony.”

😂😂

In Mr. Bricklin’s telling, Pininfarina ended its contract with him as part of a deal to make the Allanté Pininfarina for Cadillac, leaving him one car short of what he promised dealers. “So I put somebody in charge of finding the cheapest car in the world”…

It was found in Yugoslavia. Mr. Bricklin went there and encountered “that piece of crap factory with 50,000 people that should have 2,000 people, 127 Communist unions,” he recalled.

But the Yugo would face a much more formidable nemesis than Communism: Jay Leno.
…
It is a tenet of the faithful that the car would have made it if not for those jokes, a staple of Mr. Leno’s “Tonight Show” routines…

“Yugo has come out with a very clever anti-theft device,” went one Leno gag. “They made their name bigger.”

… Even now car enthusiasts can summon gibes like: “You know why the Yugo has a standard rear window defogger? To keep your hands warm while you push it.”

…

When David Lang bought a Yugo GVX in 2018, one of his goals was to drive it across Michigan’s Mackinac Bridge, notorious for a Yugo that went out of control and over the side in 1989, killing the driver.

“People are like, ‘Don’t take it over the Mackinac Bridge!’” said Mr. Lang, who lives in Brown City, Mich.

It was coincidentally on an anniversary of the accident. People reacted as if he were jumping the car over 19 flaming buses, he said.

😂

“That was the first thing I did with it.”
…
Nick Bygrave…found a moss-covered 1987 GVS that had sat in a field for 20 years, but it ran. Once the moss died, it looked like a matte paint job.

😁

…
In 1986, Noce Cadillac in Chicago offered a free Yugo with a purchase of select Caddies. According to a newspaper account, no one took a Yugo.

😭

When Kevin O’Callaghan bought 39 Yugos for his students at the School of Visual Arts in New York to turn into sculptures, the highest price paid was $80. “One guy drove it to my house,” he recalled. “I asked him what he wanted for it. He said: ‘I don’t want anything for this piece of crap. I just want a ride home, and not in that car.’

… Long Island’s Hollywood Motors recently offered a 1998 GV for $6,450.

“This … this is a very, very bad idea,” reads the description. “The thing about bad ideas, though, is that more often than not, they are a lot more fun than ‘good’ or ‘safe” ideas.’” Buying the Yugo, it suggests, is equivalent to drinking flaming tequila shots. The car is now listed as sold.

… owners say the Yugo is less troublesome and more charming than commonly thought. When Mr. Bygrave planned a trip from Ohio to New York, his boss — who owns a Yugo parts store, remember — told him, “I don’t think this is a good idea.” Mr. Bygrave wrote “NYC OR BUST” on the rear window with a craft store marker and headed out in a blizzard.

After 11 hours, “when I pulled into New York, people were honking, a cop car ran the siren, a guy in a dump truck was filming us with a phone,” he said. “My cheeks hurt from smiling.”

AH!

In 1992, the Yugo succumbed to compound wounds from reviewers, comedians, declining sales, a recall due to emissions standards and bankruptcy. But until 1999, some argued that the car would make a comeback when Yugoslav civil unrest settled. “And then NATO put five missiles into the factory,” Mr. Bricklin said, “but other than that ….”

Oh 👍👏👐 🎉 to Roy Furchgott of the Times for this fun.

I am going to be the asshole here, is is my métier. The Yugo is not the most maligned car in history. That accolade belongs, hands down, to its Eastern Bloc cousin, the East German Trabant. Called "a spark plug with a roof,"

The Trabant “LIMOUSINE”! 😂

The 1980s model had no tachometer, no indicator for either the headlights or turn signals, no fuel gauge, no rear seat belts, no external fuel door, and drivers had to pour a mix of gasoline and oil directly under the bonnet/hood.[3]
…
The Trabant's build quality was poor,[13]reliability was terrible,[10][11][14] and it was loud, slow, and poorly designed.[3]
…
It took 21 seconds to accelerate from zero to its top speed of 100 km/h (62 mph).[15][16]

The engine produced a very smoky exhaust and was a significant source of air pollution: nine times the hydrocarbons and five times the carbon-monoxide emissions of the average 2007 European car.

… Because the Trabant had no fuel pump, its fuel tank was above the motor so fuel could reach the carburettor by gravity; this increased the risk of fire in front-end accidents. 😂 Earlier models had no fuel gauge, and a dipstick was inserted into the tank to determine how much fuel remained.

Known for its dull colour scheme and cramped, uncomfortable ride, the Trabant is an object of ridicule for many Germans and is regarded as symbolic of the fall of the Eastern Bloc.[19]Known as a "spark plug with a roof" because of its small size, the car did gain public affection.