I’m endlessly surprised that I haven’t found a Yugo in Eugene. It just doesn’t seem right somehow, as we have all the qualities needed to keep one going forever: mild climate, and plenty of the kind of eccentric folks (“Yugo-slaves”?) who would make it their mission to adopt and care for one. But we are Yugo-less.
Not so Madrid. Our car-spotter in Spain, coopey, found this on the street. Here’s his commentary:
Witnessing the crash of a comet would be easier than spotting one of these in this zone. Or so I thought until that innocent stroll. If this ain’t a survivor then the concept hasn’t been well defined.
It’s amazing a few of them managed to get here even their range was fairly reduced. The 55 was the mid-version, with the already old 1.1 petrol engine producing the output that gave the name to the car. The side mirror on the door instead of on the window gives this unit away as a yet early one. Factory side graphics and sporty side skirts or bumpers should mean it’s the “luxurious” GL trim level.
But what’s funnier is that this Yugo was registered in the mid ’90s in Galicia, in the Northwestern edge of the country. Quite a travel it made, probably to hide from rust. And it looks like its mission has been well accomplished. I found this Yugo in Barajas.
BTW, our full biting story of the Yugo’s visit to American can be found here: Yugo: The Joke’s On U.S.
“Yugo-slaves” – another phrase that makes this THE place to be for automotive journalism.
I am impressed that you are still looking for one. I gave up years ago, although I know where I can find a former owner who actually owned two (and liked them better than her late Saturn Vue). Former Yugo-slave?
1.1l 55hp engine is the one from Fiat 128.
How does he maintains the car is anyones guess. Yugo only made sense in ex Yu where there was a mechanic who knew all about it on every street corner and all the spare parts costed peanuts.
Greetings from Serbia !
I have been reading your posts for quite some time, but was lazy to write a comment:)
As a proud owner of two Yugos ( ’97 Tempo 55, sold with 230,000km on the clock, car still running, but rusty, and my current ’91 Yugo 65, well-preserved,bought from one carefull owner/driver, 90,000km, completely rehauled apart from engine, runs great, ONE single spot of surface rust:), polished palisander wood inserts…don’t ask:) ), I would like to add few points to this story.
Yugos and other cars Red Flag (“Crvena Zastava) made, like 128 and 101, were based on Fiat 128, but unfortunately haven’t improved original design or corrected its mistakes in 40 years. Part were always cheap and available, but quality varied dramatically.
Also, quality of cars themselves varied greatly, so Yugos made from mid-1989 to mid-1992 are considered the best. (I can personally confirm that!)
However, with a bit of research (and a help of TECDOC ), it’s easy to find a replacement part from Fiat that fits. And it’s not unusual to have obviously well-maintainted example of Yugo in Spain, as locally made Fiat-based SEAT’s (pre-VW period) shared quite a few components. Plus, Yugo is very easy to maintain, but has quite a few quirks and faults that one has to learn how to live with.
I am actually looking to buy one Yugo 65 EFI automatic, as those are VERY rare, especially here. Car prices are going down, dollar is very strong, so it might be a good idea to import it from here…….if only transport could be cheaper…
Keep on a good work!
WOW, they don’t call it the World Wide Web for nothing! How about posting some pix of your Yugo’s
misha; thanks for the comments. If you send me some pictures and a bit of text (at the Contact form), I’ll edit it and make a post about your Yugos: a “My CC”. If you like.
Wow there was yugo for sale on trademe recently and it gererated an amazing amount of interest I didnt realise any made it to NZ but hey we caught every other automotive bullet so why not. Good to hear they still thrive in their native land.
Yeah, we got two versions, but don’t ask me the details. One version had a fairly large and fairly ridiculous body kit as standard. An acquaintance had one in the 90s – left to him by his late grandmother. Not sure he saw it as a good thing but he did need a commuting car and said it was fine for that.
Up here in the Seattle area, Yugos were sold by none other than Cal Worthington. IT’S CAL WORTHINGTON AND HIS DOG SPOT! That’s right, a brand-new Yugo, A BRAND NEW YUGO for only $4995! The combination of Cal and his “dog” (usually a circus animal rented for the occasion) was beyond annoying.
I’d love to see a feature on Misha’s Yugos. It sounds like a perfect example of saving lots of $$$ (or whatever they use in Serbia) by knowing your car, doing your own work, and doing a little homework. Of course, his strategy of using FIAT parts whenever possible wouldn’t work here in the USA– I think FIATs might be even more rare here than Yugos!
Ahem.
I had TWO Yugos (Floridas) back in the 1990’s. Both were GV’s, the red one was a 1986, the blue one a 1987. The red one lasted about 18 months with me, sadly, it was totaled in an accident with a Ford Festiva, of all things. That Yugo ran great with the exception of blowby issues, oil would get past the PCV and clog the carburetor on long drives (like my daily commute through Atlanta). It’s not a good day when you’re stranded by the side of the road and you can hear the helicopter traffic guy on the radio describing YOUR car as the reason for the backup… That was solved with a can of Restore at every oil change.
When the red one was crunched into oblivion, I found a blue one, but it had been mistreated rather badly. But I got it really, really, cheap! It took me several months to get all of the issues straightened out, and it would take up more space here than I care to type. The worst one was when the clutch cable broke, I was stuck in third gear, and if you’ve ever been in one of the 4 speed Yugos, it’s a pretty steep gear.
Luckily, the local import car place still had a guy who would/could work on Fiats, since the Yugo is all Fiat underneath, no problem. A huge number of Fiats had survived in Atlanta, and there was still no shortage of parts or folks to work on them. That being said, they weren’t that tough to work on. The factory issued a small tool kit with the wrenches and spare parts you would need in normal service (Included 19mm allen wrench to undo the oil drain plugs), and the car was dead simple. I think it was even simpler than the venerated Beetle (Kafer), outside of the compromises made to make it Federal emissions legal in the US.
The 1.1 L 4 bangers were great on gas, I routinely had 60 mile/day commutes back then, but I only filled up once a week, sometimes less frequently. All of the other routine maintenance items were easy to get to, I could do an oil change in 10 mins and it used the same filter as my 2.2 Turbo Dodge. Neither one of mine ever failed to start or ever left me stranded, with the exception of the clutch cable. The red one came with Italian Cromodora eight hole 13″ x 5.5″ aluminum wheels, and they could take wide tires. I bought some (unknown at that time) Hankook gumballs, the little beast handled like it was glued to the road.
The seating position was upright, you had good sightlines everywhere. I was never crazy about the original Hondas, as it alwasy felt like you were sitting too low in the car. The Yugo had nice chair height seats, you felt you were in command of the car, not stuck in it. The back seat folded into three different configurations, you could jam all kinds of items into that car, far more than you ever expected. There was enough room in that car to put in early 90’s era baby seats in the back seat with plenty of room left over.
I seriously could not have imagined a car better suited to suburban dwelling young couples (with one small child) than this one. Ignoring the status issues, the car worked, it was economical and convenient. This is what the VW Kafer did and the Honda Civic did before it. There were a lot of bad feelings concerning reliability and build quality, but in my two examples, I did not experience any of that at all.
Of course, the diminutive size did not help the car in a crash. The insurability issues didn’t help it either. If my Yugo would have said Honda or VW on it in the accident it sustained, it probably would have been fixed. By 1992, the war was raging in Yugoslavia, and some parts were not going to be shipped here again.
And truly, while I think about this some more, the shifter was AWFUL! It was a baseball bat in a barrel, only a practiced hand could hit the gears with any kind of accuracy. 60 HP is not going to give a nice calming ride either. Frenetic was a good word to describe the driving experience…
For a while, several years ago there were rumors the Yugo would come back to the US, I personally would have loved it if were another car as endearing as the original (to the US) Florida was. Eventually, Zastava made a deal with Fiat, and I think they are producing the Euro market Punto. Maybe Fiat will see fit to offer the Punto here, and I can get my Yugo fix again…
Crap, replying to my own post.
An addendum: There was a place in Denver, Colorado, USA, called Apple Motors who used to offer hop up kits for Yugos. I guess the hot set up was to swap in a 1.5L engine from a Fiat X-1/9 and a few other tweaks to really get the little buggy going. They offered completed cars, and a host of parts you could bolt on to your Yugo. I thoroughly wished I had the bucks to go out there and get one back in the day, but I was too busy and broke with trying to establish a business and raising kids. One of the places I got parts from when I lived in Atlanta, Bayless, is still going strong and have even opened a satellite operation in Ohio! Unfortunately, the harsh winters and salt treatments in snow country helped the Yugos up here return back to iron oxide in double time. So no hobby car for me. At least today.
There was a guy on the SCCA circuit (I think in Florida no less, amusing, huh?) who was campaigning a Yugo in one of the smaller classes. It was a full on race car, with roll bars, competition suspension and motor. I don’t remember how well he did in his class, but I loved the idea of taking a POS car and actually racing it in class competitions!
Guy, thank for the interest in my cars! I promise to write an longer story, as soon as I put together some photos to accompany it.
As for racing a Yugo, a guy originally from Yugoslavia did that, in some type of rally cross. His Yugo had about 230HP, from 1.6 liter engine:) Not to mention, a lot of exotic components were installed in that car (even titanium something…like valve springs…), but it was VERY competitive.
Back here, there were two racing classes reserved for Yugos (“almost stock” and “quite modified”…Brembo brakes and all…) and second class was quite fast. However, there was a true legend that it was more expensive to run a Yugo for whole racing season, than BMW M3 E30 ! With M3, you would changed brake discs twice or three times a year, maybe oil filter, clean air filter and that was all. Yugos needed constant attention 🙂
Geozinger, you were rather lucky with your cars! 🙂 Clutch cable were replaceable items, I admit…you could go through three of them in a year and then never replace one again…problem with wildly varying quality of replacement parts. For example, I had to change 2 or 3 camshafts in two years, and then stayed with the last one for next 5 years…
And I have to add something regarding its handling – it was very agile and rather easy to handle, but a just a slight reduction in ride height, together with shorter springs and inevitable change in front camber from positive (one of great flaws…) to negative would have seriously improved roadholding.
Sta Ima, Misha!
I wish I had my pictures of my Yugos (I incorrectly identified them as Floridas, they’re actually Korals), but those were some of the things lost in one of my many moves across the US.
I guess I’ve been extremely lucky with many of my cars, I’ve owned several that in the US have horrible reputations, mine have been good cars. Maybe the Lord has blessed me with good luck?
I wish I could get another one for me to play with again, I’d like to get all of the hot-rod parts to really have fun with one. They’re rather small for the US, but I know they can be modified to be rather quick.
It doesn’t matter at the moment now, I have four cars in my driveway, and no room for another one. Maybe if I can get my one daughter married off, I can get back my driveway and garage and have fun of my own!
Hvala! Geozinger