The Yugo GV is a Perfectly Adequate Car

This particular 1986 Yugo may be a little worse for wear, but I'm sure most Yugos are nothing like this one. Most Yugos are probably perfectly adequate cars.

[geek]

Guy walks into an auto parts store and says "I'd like a rear-view mirror for my Yugo." Guy behind the counter thinks for a second, and say, "OK, sounds like a good trade to me."

[RJ-vbgh]

I actually saw a Cadillac rear end a Yugo on the freeway. Due to the Yugo's high rear bumper the Caddy went right under the Yugo, so the Yugo wound up in the Caddy's engine compartment after going through the grill. The Caddy was pretty much trashed, the Yugo was perfectly intact. Funniest accident I've ever seen.

[timothymclean]

"My shoe is fogging the window."
That sentence is so absurd it's hilarious.

[MrJayrock]

The Yugo still has one feature that no Bentley or Rolls Royce has, and that’s a heated push starter!!!! It just happens to be located on the rear

[KOLN]

It delivers what it promises. Yugo to the store, Yugo to work, Yugo home. The name never promised Yuenjoyride or Yugetthereeasily.

[KamionKing]

The cubby hole in front of the gear shifter was usually used to store cassette tapes of popular singer Šaban Šaulić. The one above it was used for a pack of cigarettes of your choice.

[fredflintstone]

"Why does a Yugo have a rear window defogger?" -- "To keep your hands warm while you're pushing it"... Old Yugo Joke.

[jannevaatainen]

To be fair, a 4 speed gearbox and a carburetor was normal in mid 80's.

[Skrinklewink]

"Remember, the GV stands for Great Value."

Walmart: *Heavy breathing*

[grandrapids]

The older I get, the more a car like that appeals to me.

[DoRC]

Fan speed controls are on the left because it was cheaper to only have one electrical harness for all the switches.

[Smilomaniac]

Serbian driving instructors still use Yugo's, because if you can drive a Yugo, you can drive anything.
How does Mercedes test for leaks in their cars? They leave a cat in overnight and the next morning if it's dead, the car is approved.
How do they test Yugo's? The same way, if the cat is still inside the car the next day, the car is approved.
What do you call a Yugo with airconditioning and airbags? A fantasy.
If a Yugo is uniform in color, it's considered "new". If one door is a different color it's "slightly used". If a Yugo is literally two different Yugo's spliced together, it's "well cared for".

[porksniffer]

Compared to the Trabant, this is like a Bentley.

[chaysefox]

From the movie Dragnet: (1987)
"After losing the two previous vehicles we had been issued, the only car
the department was willing to release to us at this point was an
unmarked 1987 Yugo, a Yugoslavian import donated to the department as a
test vehicle by the government of that country and reflecting the
cutting edge of Serbo-Croatian technology.."

[bbjca]

My mother, at 77, decided to enter her first local timed rally with her Yugo GV. Her navigator was an ESL Columbian woman who had no driver’s license and had never driven. They finished first, beating a BMW and a Jaguar. It is not the car, it is the driver and her navigator.

[thebestisyettocome]

Sir. I owed new in 1987 and 1988. The 1988 has air conditioning. We purchased for teen daughter's. The cars worked all the way into college years. No major driving issues. Thank you

[waveydavey]

As a mechanic I miss cars like this, quick and easy to fix, no BS. And don't forget this was made pre 92 and is based on the fiat 127 so most cars of that era had little else anyway. They may get a bad press but try doing a comparison with one of its contemporaries, i.e Polo, Metro, Fiesta, R5 there's not much difference.

[Down_with_Thatcher]

I had the Yugo 45A, a UK version of this car. Ran it for a year and it never let me down despite me treating it like a go cart. I raced it everywhere. Made many trips to Ireland and trashed it with a full payload down the motorway at 100 mph, no speed cameras in those days!!! ! With hindsight that was fecking madness but still the car never let me down, nothing fell off it, and it did almost 45mpg round town and 55 on the highway. After a year on the road I sold it for the same as I paid for it. My memory of the car was fun if unsophisticated but still cheap cheerful driving.

With the luxury of 20-20 hindsight nearly 30 yrs the Yugo 45a was truly appalling, but back then to get a 3 yr old car for £600 ($900) that never let me down was a gift. I loved it.

I had a love for off beat East European cars at the time and owned a whole raft of bizzare vehicles. These included the Polish built Fiat 126bis, a 2 door hatchback version of the companies micro car. It was powered with a flat two 600cc engine, again another go cart that was incredible fun. Again it never let me down, did 60+ mpg and I sold it for what I paid for 12 months on. I owned another Yugo the 311, pure fun and topped out at an extraordinary high speed for the tiny 1100cc it employed. Another fun Eastern block car was the Romanian Dacia Duster, the 1980's military 4x4 with a Renault 1200cc engine, oh it was also a canvas top. Again great fun to drive especially given that London was having a heat wave for the time I had it... The list of bizzare cars I had is very lengthy, but what fun I had.

The bottom line here is a cheap crapy car 30 years on is a cheap crapy car, but at the time if it was all you could afford they what fecking fantastic...

[TheAcePool]

Did anyone else notice his hand reach for the steering column at first, when he first shifted from 1st to 2nd? Habit from the Trabant I assume.

[mrnoobgamerhd]

I am from a Bosnian family and these things are EVERYWHERE in ex-Yugoslavia, these are so common that my father even owned one of these. This car really is a successful car, it still has mostly been replaced by 90's VW Golfs as Zastava dissolved in 2006. The golf still looks quite similar on the outside and maybe on the inside and basically continues its legacy.