End of an era: the last Yugo will roll off its Serbian production line tomorrow

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Serbia bids farewell to Yugo
By DUSAN STOJANOVIC Associated Press Writer



http://www.salon.com/wires/ap/business/2008/11/19/D94I1K200_eu_farewell_to_yugo/index.html

Nov 19th, 2008 | BELGRADE, Serbia -- Why does a Yugo have a defroster on the rear window?

To keep your hands warm while you push it.

That's just one of the "Yugo jokes" about the cheap and much-maligned subcompact that won notoriety for being one of the worst cars ever exported to the United States.

Now, the last Yugo, once the pride of communist Yugoslavia's automobile industry, will roll off its Serbian production line Thursday in the central town of Kragujevac.

It will be missed here -- but probably not in America.

Soon after it hit the U.S. markets in 1986, selling for the bargain-basement price of just $3,990, the boxy Yugo was derided by American car magazines "as barely qualifying as a car" and "an assembled bag of nuts and bolts."

U.S. owners complained of frequent engine failures and transmission problems -- with the manual gear sticks sometimes detaching and ending up in their drivers' hands -- in addition to passenger doors and trim parts going awol.

When the U.S. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety conducted crash tests of 23 compacts in 1986, the car with the worst results was the Yugo, with $2,197 worth of damage in slow speed crashes against a flat barrier.

Still, over 100,000 Yugo GVs -- standing for Great Value -- were sold in the U.S. before Yugo America -- the company that imported it -- went bankrupt and Washington imposed economic sanctions on Belgrade for fomenting ethnic wars in the Balkans in 1992.

In the U.S., Yugo has made several joke appearances in Hollywood blockbusters such as Die Hard 3. Artists in America also found inspiration in the flimsy tin-can structure, turning it into something more useful -- like a queen size bed or a kitchen stove.