- 5 months ago
The Yugo was cheap, quirky, and unforgettable. A car that went from fad to farce in the US, it was an ambitious project that started out as a modified version of the Fiat 127, built in communist Yugoslavia. A car with many a flaw, but timeless charm, the Yugo’s polarizing legacy endures to this day.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00A Yugo is a Yugo.
00:05It's like a thai machine.
00:22The Yugo, a car from the communist world that even won over Hollywood.
00:27It made its mark far and wide.
00:33When I see it in a Yugo, I feel like home.
00:38They do have a soul. Like, they were not just regular cars.
00:42The Yugo, the socialist Volkswagen from Yugoslavia.
00:48It's not the best, but it's ours. We made it.
00:52The Yugo, a car that socialism conquered America with.
00:58Well, almost.
01:01The communist car sold in Ronald Reagan's America.
01:05Americans have voted this car the worst car of the millennium.
01:09The worst car in the world that became a star of Hollywood movies.
01:14And that's where it became an icon, and a pop icon for failure.
01:20It's boring when everything works.
01:24The Yugo, the tragic hero of history, invented in Yugoslavia before the multi-ethnic countries
01:31slid into nation states and descended into war.
01:34Yugo united about them. So all six republics were working on the same car.
01:40It's maybe a symbol of a country who doesn't exist anymore.
01:47This is the story, but we need a new story.
01:53The story of Yugo will go on.
01:57Neven Cetic from the Serbian capital, Belgrade, is a die-hard fan of the solid, affordable people's car from the Balkans.
02:08For decades, he's only driven Yugos.
02:13When I sit in a Yugo, I feel like home.
02:16We always had them in our family.
02:18When the war was in our former country, Yugoslavia, my mother put us in our Yugo.
02:26That was three years old then.
02:28And me and my brother and my mother, we came to Serbia then.
02:32It was wartime and we were on the wrong side of the border.
02:37With a song that describes fleeing the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s in a Yugo, the band Zabranjeno Pusenje still fills huge concert halls today.
02:49Yugo 45, one of the most successful hits in the history of Balkan pop, is an anthem to a simply timeless car.
02:58In 2024, it's like you're driving something that was first made in the early 80s.
03:10And they were always the same, you know.
03:13There was like small changes.
03:16They were produced for 30 years, but a Yugo is a Yugo.
03:20The Zastava plant in Kragujevac had been producing Fiat since 1953.
03:26Cars like the Zastava 750, a version of the Fiat 600, were intended to make the people mobile.
03:33That was the goal of Yugoslavia, led by Josep Broz Tito from 1945.
03:39Because the communist country wanted to build a successful independent economy,
03:43a research and development center was founded at the Zastava factory at the start of the 1970s.
03:50We understood that the factory must be formed independently, having its own R&D.
04:01That's why our first car, Zastava 101, was created, then similar to Yugo, and finally the Florida model.
04:13The Yugo became Zastava's most successful product.
04:17In 1980, the first Yugo to roll off the production line was presented as a gift to Yugoslav President Tito in a festive state ceremony.
04:26To this day, the Yugo is a Spartan car with only 45 horsepower and a very special driving experience.
04:36You feel tired, of course, because it's a bit noisy, but that's all the part of the experience with a Yugo.
04:49That is the point of the car.
04:51I like the feeling that you are always engaged when you drive these type of cars,
04:57because you always have to check something. Here you have to do everything manually.
05:02But the Yugo did get a few small, luxurious details.
05:07It's very simple inside. Here we have the back rear defroster where you can just warm up your hands if you need to push the car.
05:20You have a horn, a wheel. It works. And, of course, you have a lighter to light up your cigarette.
05:27And the fun fact of this car, interior, it's a small car, but it has three ashtrays. So everybody needs to smoke.
05:36But the heart of the Yugo is under the hood.
05:39We have a Yugo engine, 903 cubic centimeters. Also, the transmission is also here, so you can fix it on every parking lot.
05:51It's a very cheap car, cheap to maintain.
05:58Nevin Czeric regularly takes part in outings organized by the Zastava fan club in Belgrade.
06:04Anyone who owns a car produced at the Zastava plant is welcome.
06:09The fan club members love the Balkan style of car construction.
06:14It makes you a good driver since you don't have the ABS, you don't have the airbags, you don't have anything.
06:19So it's basically you and the car. And you need to feel it to understand it.
06:25From the beginning, I was in love with this car.
06:29These cars bring together all generations.
06:35It means a lot to me because it's the same model that we had back when I was a child.
06:43I wanted to capture, you know, the good old feelings of nostalgia, but I wanted to make new memories with it.
06:52It is a car that really made my life the way it is now because me and my brother, we did some modifications and we had a great time.
07:03Also, I met my husband this way, so I always say that this is the reason why my daughter exists.
07:09It goes without saying that using tools is part of every Yugo owner's daily life.
07:18You need to love them, to take good care of them in order for them to take care of you and to serve you properly.
07:24Marko Mialkovic from the Zastava Fan Club works as a tour guide for the Yugo Verse Agency in Belgrade.
07:33In his Zastava 101, which was sold under the name Yugo Scala, he takes tourists on a tour of the former Yugoslavia.
07:40Being in these cars is simply something unique that you have to experience, especially while we are driving and you are looking at those buildings that were built in communist period, in brutalism.
07:56You can simply, it's like a time machine.
07:59A highlight of every one of Marko's tours is the Gen X Tower. The 36-story skyscraper, which opened in 1980, was one of President Tito's pet projects.
08:11He had established a communist system in Yugoslavia that was very open to the capitalist West, and also had successful trade relations with it.
08:20I would say this is Tito's child. Tito wanted to show how big and strong we are, so he made all buildings in New Belgrade big.
08:30So this is the biggest building that you can see in Yugoslavia at that time.
08:34As this building symbolizes the Yugoslavia, it's also happening with Yugo in Zastava 101.
08:43The Yugo has been exported to 74 countries, including the United States.
08:50Introducing the new Yugo, a paramount engineering achievement from Yugoslavia.
08:55In 1985, Malcolm Bricklin, a Philadelphia-born entrepreneur, founded the Yugo America Company to bring the compact Yugo to market in the United States.
09:06In his book, The Rise and Fall of the Worst Car in History, American historian Jason Buick tells this exciting story.
09:14A communist car sold in Ronald Reagan's America. That alone, you know, the answer seems obvious.
09:23But Americans, again, had no idea where Yugoslavia was.
09:27So it wasn't the communist issue, but what drew everyone's attention to the car was the price.
09:33It was $3,990, brand new.
09:39The first Yugo advertisement, it's the Model T, the Volkswagen, and the Yugo.
09:46And it says, introducing the same old idea.
09:49The Yugo was one of those people's car that we've had in our history.
09:53Everybody needs a Yugo sometime.
09:57I bought my Yugo because now I can afford a brand new car.
10:01And the cars sold like hotcakes.
10:03Long lines of people formed in front of every Yugo dealership.
10:06Under $4,000, an unbeatable deal.
10:11You know, like any new fad, people rush to look at it and to buy it.
10:17Maybe kind of to be the first person on their street to show their neighbors.
10:22You know, I'm the crazy guy with this cheap car.
10:25I don't care about, you know, consumer culture in America.
10:30And the Yugo changed the entire U.S. automobile market.
10:33Such a small and cheap vehicle had never been for sale there before.
10:37In its first year in the U.S., the compact car from Yugoslavia sold around 40,000 units.
10:44In the first year, the Yugo was the fastest selling European import in U.S. history.
10:54So once the Yugo entered the low end of the market and showed, you know, the car producers around the world that there still is a market there.
11:03And it may be viable that Hyundai jumped in.
11:08Daihatsu jumped back in.
11:10Suzuki came back in.
11:12You know, all of a sudden there was, you know, American journalists who covered automobiles called it a race to the bottom.
11:19But then more and more American car experts began to take a closer look at the cheap car from Yugoslavia.
11:26It became clear it couldn't always keep up with U.S. standards.
11:30And America's most important consumer organization also turned a spotlight on the Yugo.
11:35The Consumer Reports can help you get better value.
11:40And they reviewed the Yugo and Consumer Reports said, don't buy the Yugo.
11:45The review alone was enough to be in the national news.
11:49You know, the next morning, did you hear what the news said?
11:51You know, you're at work.
11:52And then pretty soon it's on David Letterman and Jay Leno.
11:55And from there it went from, you know, Yugo mania and consumer fad to national icon and national joke.
12:06Jay, how do you get a Yugo to go zero to 60 in 10 seconds?
12:10I don't know.
12:12Drive that off the cliff.
12:14A Yugo did just that in the Bette Midler movie, Drowning Mona.
12:19Think about the scumbag.
12:23As I see it, you've got two options.
12:25Buy us out.
12:26I'll pray for an early test.
12:28And the cops in Dragnet end up with a Yugo.
12:31After losing the two previous vehicles we had been issued,
12:34the only car the department was willing to release to us at this point was an unmarked 1987 Yugo.
12:39In the series Moonlighting, Bruce Willis does whatever he can to get rid of the unloved car.
12:46Rest in peace.
12:50And in Die Hard 3, he steals a Yugo to go on a manhunt.
12:55Let's go, let's go, come on.
12:56And it's in The Simpsons and Cars 2.
12:58What country is this car from?
13:00It no longer exists, but take her for a test drive.
13:03So you want me to stop talking to you? Right now?
13:06You are acting strange today.
13:08Art professor Kevin O'Callaghan based one of the most successful American exhibitions ever on the car.
13:15The Yugo as a toaster.
13:17A telephone.
13:18An accordion.
13:20He'd challenged students to reinvent this car.
13:23They also created a Yugo slot machine.
13:28And a Yugo piano.
13:32Given a Yugo as a point of departure, give it a new life other than the one it was intended to have.
13:39We called it Yugo Next, obviously referencing its next life or its next phase.
13:48And the only rule was that it just couldn't be a car anymore.
13:52She's running great.
13:53Let's jump the bridge.
13:55But we're in a Yugo.
13:59But while the Yugo became a media star, its sales plummeted.
14:03That was partly due to developments back home in Yugoslavia.
14:07With his strong personality, President Tito had always managed to unite the different peoples and religions in the country.
14:16But after his death in 1980, more and more tensions and conflicts flared in Yugoslavia, leading to war in 1991.
14:25Yugoslavia was starting to crack.
14:29And when Yugoslavia, when Serbia goes under UN sanctions as a business, Yugo America is sanctioned.
14:37And that was really the end.
14:38And finally, in 1999, NATO bombed the Yugo plant, the Zastava plant.
14:46It was an arms manufacturer.
14:48And so, you know, this is like the final crescendo of my Yugo opera.
14:55Can you have a Yugo without Yugoslavia?
14:58And the answer was no.
15:00The country split into six separate nations.
15:03The employees of the Zastava factory fought to continue producing a small series in newly independent Serbia.
15:10But on November 11th, 2008, the last Yugo rolled off the production line.
15:15The end of an illustrious chapter in European automobile history with 800,000 Yugos built over almost 30 years.
15:23How did we feel on this date exactly 16 years ago?
15:28The answer would be very sad and very emotional.
15:34But even if Yugos are no longer being built, they're more alive than ever in art and culture.
15:40Actress and comedian Ana Maria Stojic wants to produce a TV series based on Jason Vuick's book.
15:53I was born in a country that doesn't exist anymore.
15:56It was called Yugoslavia.
15:57It was a discontinued.
15:59And she's fascinating.
16:01You know, her, the Yugo to her represents a lost family past, a country she's never known.
16:08Swiss stage designer Isabel Kaiser, whose mother was from Bosnia, conceived the multimedia project Yugo Taxi with a similar motivation.
16:19For two years, she and her husband toured Germany and Switzerland in a Yugo Scala and documented encounters with people from the former Yugoslavia.
16:27We made some interviews also in the car.
16:31So a lot of persons from ex Yugoslavia who sit in the car, they react really fast.
16:40They had immediately emotions.
16:43That's what the Yugoslavia New Wave sounded like in the early 80s, at the time when the car was built.
17:01And that was, if you like, the soundtrack to my youth.
17:06I was tall, blonde and handsome back then, when I was a teenager in the 80s.
17:14For me, the issue, the theme was interesting because I was born in the GDR in East Germany.
17:28And Yugoslavia was always like a dream place where always the sun is shining.
17:35And this car, the Sastava, some people in the GDR had this car.
17:42We had a Trabi.
17:43Every time when we were driving with the car, the Trabi, I was sick because the smell of the petrol was really strong.
17:52And the Sastava was like a Western car.
17:55No airbags, but three ashtrays, one in the front, two in the back.
18:06Every journey is a new adventure for me.
18:10This was my very first car in the former Yugoslavia, given to me by my father for my 18th birthday.
18:17It was really overlapped this Yugoslavian topic for me because it was the war in the 90s.
18:29And I was a child and I just had these really dark pictures.
18:34And even my family, maybe they didn't spoke so much about their past in Yugoslavia.
18:42I didn't know that it was really a modern, nice country.
18:47And this, I think, this light went up after the project.
18:52I have also a feeling how it could be before the war wars.
19:01The Austrian-Macedonian musician Yugo Urdens brought the Yugo back to life in a 2018 rap song.
19:07And a Slovenian artist collective traveled from Europe to the US with a Yugo for a very special performance.
19:16It's definitely more than a car, I would say.
19:20It's not only a car, but it's a story, it's an idea, it's a symbol of not only of some times, but also some kind of clash of socialism and capitalism on one side.
19:33On the other side of these big dreams and collapse.
19:38Yeah, maybe some contrasts.
19:40And even in the US, the story of the worst car in the world is far from over.
19:46Can we bring this car again and see how people react to it?
19:52Stopping with the Yugo in the middle of some street and getting the reactions from people.
19:59This was priceless because we parked, for example, in Harlem.
20:03Why don't they bring them back to America, man? I like them.
20:06I like the grill. The rims don't look fat then, bro.
20:09I'd rather have a Yugo than a Tesla.
20:14Well, great filmmaker Filip Grujic has also just returned from America.
20:18He was there filming for a movie that he hopes will shed new light on the myth of the Yugo.
20:24Yugo being the worst in America and I kind of wanted to explore what does that mean, you know, to be the worst.
20:35Or sometimes it's the best thing to be the worst.
20:37I think it's the best sometimes because we were going slow and not just fast.
20:41And everything today is kind of fast, rapid.
20:44Everything works or everything is technologized.
20:48We need, I think, that touch that is not just technology-based, that it's human.
20:54Because in order to not go mental and crazy, we need something that is human.
20:59And this car is human.
21:01It's a symbol of some of those older times that everybody talks about,
21:06that they were better and the people lived better and they were, like, more human.
21:13The Yugo brings back memories of a time when everyone from the Serbs to the Bosnians
21:19still celebrated together in a united Yugoslavia.
21:28And this symbol of a common Balkan identity lives on.
21:34It's not the best, but it's ours. We made it.
21:37We will always have an urge and need to have something that is ours.
21:42Yugo is something that is our heritage, but maybe it's time to focus on something,
21:47to make something ours again.
21:49This is the story, but we need a new story.
21:51We need something to call ours again.
21:54If it's something that resembles the Yugo, great.
21:58So it's only fitting that the German-Serbian economist and entrepreneur,
22:02Aleksandar Bielic, wants to bring another twist to the fate of the cult car.
22:07I decided to purchase a brand, which was Yugo, with the strong intention to bring the Yugo car back on the road.
22:19To build a new modern Yugo and to present and launch this car on the World Expo in Belgrade 2027.
22:29The rights to the Yugo brand are in high demand.
22:34Jelic, who teaches at Belgrade University and advises the Serbian government on economic issues,
22:40had to fight off strong competition.
22:42For example, the Croatian Mate Rimac, whose company has already taken over the luxury brand Bugatti.
22:48Currently the Bugatti Chiron is the fastest accelerating production car.
22:59Mate Rimac wanted to acquire the Yugo brand and to launch a new Yugo.
23:07Already there have been some renderings of these cars.
23:11And yeah, first come, first come, first serve.
23:16This was a longer, a longer process.
23:18I had several discussions, including the Serbian ministry, how this could work.
23:24Will the Yugo make a comeback in the new millennium?
23:28We are forming a group of enthusiasts of Yugo specialists coming from the old Yugo models.
23:40We are in discussion with ex-Yugo-Slavian designers to prepare renderings.
23:48Dejan Hristov from Macedonia, for example, is such a candidate who has already presented some very, very interesting renderings.
23:58Dejan Hristov has designed vehicles ranging from compact cars to convertibles.
24:04His designs for the new Yugo also include an SUV and even a van.
24:13I find it interesting to redesign old, legendary cars,
24:19to translate their aesthetics into a modern design language
24:23and adapt them to the standards of the automotive industry of our time.
24:28I knew that the Yugo style could be used for a car that even today can look harmonious, attractive and relatively sporty.
24:42Alexander Bielic is currently negotiating with European and Chinese car companies to provide the technical platform for a relaunch of the Yugo.
24:52These are new, exciting prospects for the globally networked scene of Yugo enthusiasts.
24:58The feeling about the Yugo is alive and this feeling we want to take, to capture and bring it into the new Yugo.
25:13To say it in the Sobo-Croatian language,
25:16Yugo will be driven for a long time.
25:22The story of Yugo will go on.
25:24It's a story that kept Yugo alive. It's not the car that kept Yugo alive. It's a story.
25:29The Yugo, the successful product of a communist country, has won over the globe, played a role in creating a sense of identity,
25:38and radiated charm through its very flaws.
25:41The worst car in the world just keeps on going.
25:44And its story, which already reads like the script for a Hollywood movie, is far from over.
25:50And more automotive tales, next time on Rev.
Comments