Ping!
Kinda odd that the Yugo was able to meet US safety and emissions standards (of the time) but today so many other great Euro cars (some made by GM and Ford) won’t be sold here.
My mom had a Yugo.
She did regular maintenance and took care of it and put over 300,000 miles on it before she got rid of it.
It was also featured in Drowning Mona"...................
Time to bail out Yugo?
Yugo is a derivative of a 1969 FIAT 128. The YUGO was bound to be a fine example of communism’s influence on the fine example of FIAT’s notorious quality control.
I had to drive a rental Yugo for two days. Sheesh....it was amazing that it could actually be classified as an “automobile.” Unbelievably gutless. Merging on the Freeway was a spiritual experience.
The funniest thing was that on the dash it had a tachometer next to the speedometer. Looked kinda cool. However, if you watched that tach, it never varied a bit from what the speedometer was reading. The tach was a dummy.....for looks only.
Heh.
I used to be acquainted with a Ukrainian priest who had to have been the best-natured man who ever lived. One evening before a church meeting some of us were standing outside as he drove up in his Yugo. We razzed him a little about his car, not just because it was a Yugo, but also because he was a huge man for such a small car. He laughed, “What a terrible car! I bought two of them!”
I’m guessing you don’t recall the first Subarus.
“The first U.S. Subaru is the 360. This very small rear wheel drive minicar had a 2-stroke, 25 horsepower 356 cc engine (thus the 360 name), weighed under 1000 pounds, got 66.3 mpg, went 0-50 in over 37 seconds. and cost $1,297. It came in a few models: 2 door sedan, then the “Young S” 2 dr sedan, minivan (that’s me in the white 5 door van below), a truck version, and even a mini race car too. There may have been as many as 6000 of these imported through 1969, though they weren’t exactly a best seller.”
www.cars101.com/subaru/subaru_history.html
I seem to recall that they were classified as motorcycles because of weight and engine.
Th last ime I saw a Yugo was last year. An old man with grey hair in a ponytail was driving it.
On the back was a Gore/Lieberman bumper-sticker.
Good Bye to the Yugo, the worst piece of crap ever imported in modren history.
The video, “In a Yugo”....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pz2eCFoafXk
Good Bye to the Yugo, the worst piece of crap ever imported in modren history.
The video, “In a Yugo”....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pz2eCFoafXk
Later Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, while he was working for Kissinger & Associates in the mid-1980’s, was on the Board of the company that imported Yugos to the US.
Not sure how the Zastava is doing these days (probably better than GM) clunkers but I’d rather drive this baby this any day:
On the other hand, Yugoslavia has some of the best wine and best cork wood in the world.
I’m a huge fan of Avia.
The factory in Kragujevac that turned out the Zastava/Yugo line of automobiles was also a manufacturer of some pretty effective small arms, and thus was a primary target for the NATO bombings during the air war. I always wanted a Yugo car with a sunroof and Zastava M/53 light machinegun mount for it....
Letter from Yugo factory
Monday, 12 April 1999
Dear friend,
We are sending you letter of workers from automobile company *YUGO* that was bombed by NATO planes regardless that workers decided to make live shield around their factory. Now with factory destroyed more than 40,000 people has lost their jobs and means to feed their families. Photos and more stories about crimes committed over Yugoslavia You can find at www.aic.org.yu and www.barw.org.yu.
COMMUNICATION TO THE PUBLIC OF ALL NATO MEMBER COUNTRIES
This night, the 9th of April, the ZASTAVA factory plants in Kragujevac were bombed. The live shield is broken through. This bombardment has inflicted sever damage to factory equipment and almost completely destroyed the energy supply complex that served not only to the ZASTAVA needs, but also for the heating of the entire city of Kragujevac: its residential houses, schools, faculties, hospitals... Yet, horror-stricken we were at the civilian victims: tens of men inside a live shield that was safeguarding the factory plants. Among the victims there were not only the ZASTAVA workers, but also members of their families and other citizens of the city of Kragujevac. What none from among us either could, or was willing to assume as possible did happen: Kragujevac has re-experienced its WW II tragedy, its citizens have again become the target of a barbarian assault. In the name of what aims did war planes take off from the once our friendly countries which used to send us the ideas of humanness, freedom, maybe the greatest treasure that we have in the modern civilisation? What has happened to all those ideas and have they been just an illusion that had dispersed at the first sound of raised arms? We, the small people, that has looked with admiration at all the great things coming from you, could nor, or did not want to accept that this was so. Haven't we, still, been mistaken? Has any one from among you give a thought to our future and the future of our children that has become entirely uncertain due to this insane act, and precisely this future we have been defending at the price of our own lives. Already exhausted by sanctions that have reduced our average monthly salary from DEM 870 to DEM 5-60, knowing that a destruction of the factory would bring into the question the very existence of ourselves and our families, we have made a desperate move: with our bodies we have made a live shield that has been guarding our factory night- and-day. We have been resolute, since the very onset of the attack on our country, and persisted in the realisation of that decision every day, not to leave our plants after the expire of the working hours, not even when the alarms would sound air strikes, thus staying round the clock by our workplaces. By night our family members and citizens of Kragujevac were visiting us, giving us support and making us these moments of painful suspense easier. In order to prevent a horrendous catastrophe that may arise due to an insane act of attack on our factory, through the media, we have addressed local and world public, giving the precise co-ordinates of the factory, and pointing at the potential losses, spiritual and material, that may be inflicted by its destruction. In our addressees we appealed to the public of NATO member countries, to the conscience of the common men in those countries. Besides by local, our appeal was published and broadcast by numerous foreign media: TV networks and news houses.
We, the ZASTAVA workers and citizens of Kragujevac, are afraid of the future standing in front of us. Now we wonder whether we have any future at all. Our children are hungry, and their eyes filled with horror. We have no more answers to their questions.
Kragujevac, 9thpril 1999
EMPLOYEES AND MANAGEMENT OF "ZASTAVA" AND CTIZENS OF KRAGUJEVAC
Sincerely Yours,
Belgrade Academic Association for Equal Rights in the World editor@barw.org.yu
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