- You get good cars, you got bad cars. Then you got the worst car ever. One vehicle that has landed itself on the bottom of the beater
pile time and time again. It's the ultra cheap
Eastern European hatchback that became the butt of
every bad late-night joke and still remains a punchline to this day. - Let's jump the bridge. - But we're in a Yugo. (car engine revving) (car crashing) - What country is this car from? - It no longer exists. Put it in age. - Today, we're gonna talk
about the infamous Yugo. Like a lot of awful things,
it came to us in the 80s. But despite its bad rap, the
Yugo was not a total failure. It defied logic, surpassed expectations and even broke some sales records. So let's find out why
the world's worst car was actually a huge success. (logo whooshing) The Yugo was a no-frills potato of a car that many describe as
a glorified lawnmower. It had cheap price with
even cheaper construction. So how did this communist
era car become such a big hit in Reagan's capitalist America? To find out we're gonna have to go back to the start of it all, Genesis. (upbeat rock music) ♪ I can feel it ♪ The Yugo's name comes from the
former country of Yugoslavia, which is now Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia and a few other smaller countries. The Yugo was born in
the town of Kragujevac, Kragu, Kragujevac, Krah-goo-yeah-vats. Sorry if I mispronounced that from the loins of a firm called Zastava, a company that manufactured cannons, guns and military vehicles. After World War II, Zastava
continued to build Jeeps but was looking to get in
the production car market. They were able to work
out a deal with Fiat and bought licenses to produce
Fiat models in Kragujevac under the Zastava name. In the late 1970s, they
designed their own version of the Fiat 127 called the Yugo. And by 1980, it officially
went into production. In terms of design, the
powertrain and chassis of the Yugo was identical to the decade-old Fiat 127. The body and interior
though, were different and they were not an upgrade. Arguably more important that the Yugo's geographical birthplace is the political environment
in which it was born into. The post-Stalin Soviet
Bloc was a communist union and automobiles were an
ideologically complex aspect of communist life. Having a car played into
the same individualism that the leaders in power fought against but they were also an important sector of technological advancement that the Soviet Bloc so desperately needed to catch up to the capitalist first world. As kind of a compromise, the cars that came out
of this area and era were made to be totally utilitarian. Like everything made in the Soviet Union, they were made to be
functional, not flashy. And they're made at a bare minimum cost. The Zestava factory worked differently from factories in the States. The luxury and options
available in American cars were seen as frivolous and unnecessary. During a tour of the... (electronic scratching) It's hard to say the
Za-sta-va, just saying that. During a tour of the Zastava factory, Yugo America's product
planner, Tony Seminara, recalled a quote, "The
place was humongous. But it was also filthy. I mean the floor was two inches thick with
grease from the press shop." It was like no one's kitchen. He also said that he saw workers quote, "Manhandling raw sheet metal and putting damaged parts
onto finished cars." The idea of craftsmanship wasn't at the heart of the factory. It was cheap labor made by people that probably didn't
have cars of their own. This is how many cars were
built in the Soviet Union. The Yugo made perfect sense
for the place and the time. So why and how did the
Yugo come to America? The Yugo's arrival to the
American automotive market was the result of a perfect
storm of circumstances. So let's set the scene, okay? It's the early 1980s and capitalism is in full
force in Reagan's America. You had Michael Douglas was on Wall Street saying greed was good. Everybody had big shoulder
pads for some reason, gold-plated DeLoreans
were available to purchase in the back of "SkyMall". Things were good, sort of. The free market is in fashion, all right? Fortunes are made and lost
in the blink of an eye. After suffering two gas shortages, Americans purchased foreign
cars in record numbers because these things were better, okay. They were better on gas and
just had better build quality. Most of these cars were small
economy cars from Japan. So in order to avoid an import cap, Japan enacted a "voluntary
export constraint," which meant they'd be sending
way fewer cars to the States. To get the most buck for their bang, they shifted export focus to higher-end mid-sized luxury sedans, and that's where brands like Acura, Lexus and Infiniti came into the picture. This left a huge gaping Yugo-shaped hole in the American small car
markets. Simultaneously, an American oil company
called Occidental Petroleum had just signed a counter
trade deal with Yugoslavia. The deal basically said
that the United States would give Yugoslavia oil
in exchange for pretty much, whatever they could make that
they thought would sell well in the U.S. It was a real loosey goosey international trade deal and
it laid the perfect groundwork for a new fun Yugoslavian
import to step into the scene. Like when an exchange
student comes to your school and he's like really handsome. He partys. Along came man with a
mission, Mr. Malcolm Bricklin. He was a businessman with
an unconventional career and a reputation for
bringing companies back from the brink of extinction. He founded Subaru of
America after the failure of the Subaru 360 micro car. A K-car that looked like a Citroen
had a baby with a Beetle. Then one fateful day in 1984, Malcolm was walking a London street when he spotted a Yugo
45. The idea struck him like an entrepreneurial bolt of lightning. He would bring this little
communist car that couldn't to the United States and sell
it to the car-hungry masses at an egregiously low price. So in 1985, after a series of setbacks that were quite frankly inevitable,
the Yugo finally made it to U.S. shores. Would the
American consumer buy the Yugo? Would it be a success? Or would it flop like
the Subaru 360 before it? Well, let's just say that
when Yugo hit the market, people went into a mania. Yugo Mania. On August 25th 1985, the Yugo debuted in 50 Northeastern dealerships
for the jaw dropping price of $3,990. Which is about $9,600 today. That was about half the price
of any other cheap new car around that time. Many dealers promoted it with a financing deal of
$99 down and $99 a month. That's like cheaper than the
Nissan version Note today and much, much didier. And
consumers, they did consume in a frenzy like a bunch
of piranas chewing up a cranberry that fell into the Marsh. People lined up at the
dealerships in stupid numbers. The Boston Washington
Corridor completely sold out. Americans bought 1050 Yugos in one day. People waited months for
their Yugos to be delivered. It was truly Yugo mania. It was an actual cultural phenomenon like Beaver fever or Nolan
madness and that comes next year. For the next six months,
the media was saturated with headlines and
commercials for the Yugo. It was a perfect first
car for new drivers. The perfect second car for families. A magnet for bargain hunters. Heck if I was around in 1985,
I might have bought one too but I wasn't. I'm
obviously very, very young. The Yugo sold like hotcakes and became the fastest
selling European import ever in the United States but then
people started driving them. (woman screaming) And it didn't take long
for Americans to realize why the Yugo was cheap.
Quite frankly, it sucked. It was slow, unreliable and unsafe. The Yugo quickly gained the reputation as the worst car ever. And it became the butt of many dad jokes of which I will deliver. What do you call a Yugo
with a flat tire? Totaled. How do you double the value of
a Yugo? Fill up the gas tank. What comes free with every
Yugo? A bus schedule. I would go on but all
those jokes have aged just as well as the Yugo itself. Anyway, the Yugo couldn't recover from its horrible reputation. And Yugo of America folded in 1992. RIP So let's take a closer look at what exactly makes
the Yugo so terrible. The thing that made the Yugo
so enticing was that it was one of the cheapest cars you
could buy but you know what they say, "You get what you pay for." And that rang especially
true for the Yugo. It was very cheaply
made. From the outside, it actually doesn't look too bad. It was similar in design
to other hatchbacks of the 80s like the Golf or the Fiesta. But if you're ever lucky
enough to get inside one of these things, you're gonna
see a ton of flimsy plastic, exposed bolts, fasteners and wires and very cheap upholstery. The base model only has two air vents, no glove box and a radio
that comes without pre-sets. That's right. The Yugo forces
you to manually channel surf while you're driving. The steering wheel
controls look like pieces of plastic cutlery. The door locks are made of loosely placed, pac-man shaped pieces. And you
don't even get cup holders. There's no arm rest. There's no frills. And that's just the
interior. Under the hood, the Yugo boasts a 1.1
liter four cylinder engine. The spare tire sits
right next to the engine. And the spare tire itself is
a bit larger than the engine. It has something like 40 horsepower. The car creeps from zero
to 60 in 14 seconds. The suspension on the Yugo
was almost non-existent. It was difficult to steer and
it couldn't get up most hills. In 1986 J.D. Power and
Associates rated it dead last in consumer satisfaction. And when crash tested by the
Institute for Highway Safety, the Yugo crumpled like
a jackoline in December. It was all around crappy
but for all its crappiness, for all its flaws, I still consider the Yugo
a considerable success. And here's why. Quite
frankly by the numbers, this car was a success.
Don't get me wrong. The Yugo definitely earns its spot in the Hoopty Hall of Fame. But considering how small
the dealership network was, its first year sales were
astounding and record breaking. During its eight year run
in the American market almost 140,000 units sold. And it did all that despite
being a communist car sold in Reagan's America. It's buzz overcame anti-Soviet sentiment and capitalized on a
whole country's obsession with consumerism. Sales
aside, the quick rise and even faster fall of the Yugo was a historical cultural phenomenon. It was such an automotive
anomaly that it inspired art and spawned a cult
following. Kevin O'Callahan, artist and teacher at the New
York School of Visual Arts was inspired when he saw some kids on the street playing baseball and using a broken down
Yugo as a backstop. Its transformation from treasure to trash sparked the idea
for the famous art exhibit. Yugo Next. He and his
students collected Yugos and transformed them into
an array of non-car items. He turned them into foosball
tables, cigarette lighters, slot machines and
telephones. The whole idea of the exhibit was to
make something useful out of something use less. Now I'm no expert but
that's a pretty good art. And it came from this bad, bad part. Yugo Next is just one of the
many ways the Yugo has sunk in into our collective consciousness. For such a failure, it's pretty famous. I mean, we're still
talking about it today. There's a Bosnian band
with a song about it. A Viennese rapper who uses
it as his whole brand. There are countless YouTube videos that spew their affectionate
odds to the Yugo. They're loyal subscribers.
It's a cult classic, cool story and a symbol of
country that no longer exists. So yeah, the Yugo was a success. The same way that The Room was a success or Tubthumping by Chumba Wamba or crocs. People love to hate the Yugo. It's so bad that it's
good and at any rate, we're still talking about it. Right? Thanks for watching Wheelhouse. How about you go down to the comments and tell me what you think. If you're a real hardcore doughnut fan and you want even more content, we have a membership program
called the Donut Underground. You can click the join button right there. You get behind the scenes
video, stickers, early access to much and access to a discord channel which I pop into every now and then. Follow me on all social
media if you'd like to @honjakes/donut at Donut Media. We're still trying to hit one million Be kind. See you next time.
Prvo priča kako je Jugoslavija istočni blok i onda te u 2:50 udari sa tim: "Like everything made in the Soviet Union..."
Yugo zapravo nije bio loše zamišljen ali je bio katastrofalno napravljen i dosta stvari je izbačeno zarad neke uštede.
Razlog tome su delom bile zastarele mašine. Svaki strug i svaka mašina ima određene tolerancije kod alata. Recimo kod pravljenja oružja se navlaka pištolja i šine na koju se navlači navlaka moraju podudarati savršeno i postoje neka mala propisana odstupanja tj. koliko mere smeju da odstupaju da bi pištolj bio upotrebljiv. Sada zamislite to isto samo u ovom slučaju je u pitanju izrada motora i ostalih delova auta. To su bili strugovi i mašine stare po 20 godina još tada, to više nije bilo nizašta. Na lošem strugu sigurno ne možeš da proizvodiš dobre delove. Zatim je tu bilo dosta loše proizvedenih glava motora sa velikim nepodudaranjem mera. Šta reći kada je bilo slučajeva gde klip nije mogao da stane u motor ili stave nove karike u motor i on kao nov iz fabrike nema dovoljnu kompresiju.
Limarija je bila rađena očajno, lim debeo svega 0.7 milimetara i to je lim u početku bio slabijeg kvaliteta.
Onda su tu razne gluposti kao retrovizor samo na strani vozača i onaj u autu, brava koja je mogla da se otvori ako imaš pri ruci 50 para, rezervna guma ispod haube i kriminalno slab motor.
Dobre strane su mu bile što je bio lak za popravku a kao auto je bio veoma ekonomičan, imao je prednju vuču i bio je odličan početnički auto. Takođe je imao očajan menjač.
Bio bi to odličan auto samo da je neko sposoban seo i to nadogradio i da je bilo volje u Zastavi da se zapravo uloži malo više u proizvodnju.
Hteo sam i ja da postavim :)
Skinuce ti moderatori, ne treba da menjas naslov. Ceo kanal je odican za ljude koji gotive automobile.
Samo triger upozorenje svima kojima je potrebno, Kosovo nisu stavili u granice Srbije i stavljaju Jugoslaviju u blok Sovjetskih drzava, ali ispravljaju se u pinovanom komentaru.
James no dad jokes, su ne nadjebivi
Jebote koliko ovi Amlerikanci nisu svesni ničega o nama.. On misli da smo mi bili neka Sovjetska Republika..
Dobar kanal al znaju da ujebu geopolitiku.