All you ever wanted to know about the Yugo

[Galland]

I've always been a fan of the original Yugo car. It was a very reliable and simple design. It's weakness was the manufacturer. Zavasta was a company that still used Soviet style management and quality control techniques. I think if all Yugos were disassembled and then reassembled upon importation, they would never have become the butt of jokes.


www.hszk.bme.hu/~oj002/yugo/

NATO jets, specifically American NATO jets, saw fit to bomb Zavasta's American Yugo assembly line during the war against Serbia. The machine dies were destroyed and the main design bureau computer cooling system was hit, releasing thousands of gallons of toxic material into the Donnau (Danube) river. Supposedly the Zavasta plant was being used to make weapons. It's more likely that it was producing goods which threatened competing auto makers rather than U.S. soldiers.


Galland

[Keith Heitmann]

The Yugo was an old version of a Renault so the original design was probably sound. No telling what communist manage did to it after a while. The major selling point of the car in the states was that it was the cheapest thing one could buy at the time.