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Yugo—of All Brands!—Is Rising from the Dead
Retro styling is making a comeback. Volkswagen funneled the spirit of the original Bus into the electric ID. Buzz, Renault brought back the 4 and the 5, and now, the Yugo brand is unexpectedly rising from the grave.
Prof. Dr. Aleksandar Bjelić, an engineer, economist, and professor with decades of experience in the car industry, is behind the project. He has already secured the funding required to buy the rights to the Yugo name, filed the required trademark applications all over the world, and commissioned a Serbian designer named Darko Marčeta to come up with a handful of early styling proposals, according to The Autopian.
Marčeta’s sketches depict a small, boxy hatchback inspired by the original Yugo, which was built from 1980 to 2008 and updated numerous times during its production run. It’s not 100 percent old-school, however, and styling cues such as LED headlights bring the Yugo into the modern era. The Rivian R3 draws from similar inspiration.
The retro treatment will also permeate the new Yugo’s market positioning. Like the original, which stood out as one of the cheapest new cars sold in the United States, it will be marketed as a relatively affordable model pegged at the lower end of the market. Yugo will source the car’s mechanical components, such as the platform, from a carmaker whose identity hasn’t been revealed yet in a bid to keep costs in check. It will also power the car with a combustion engine, though an electric model hasn’t been entirely ruled out.
Development work is ongoing, and Yugo plans to unveil a scale model of the hatchback before the end of 2025. The first running prototype is tentatively scheduled to debut at the 2027 Belgrade Expo. That’s over two years away, but we expect that more details about the brand, the car, and its plans for the future will trickle out in the coming months. Rebooting a long-dormant carmaker is no small task, after all.
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In the meantime, Yugo will retrace the tire tracks of a 1975 expedition that took five teams each driving a Zastava 101 from Kragujevac in Yugoslavia (now in Serbia) to Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. The convoy will leave Serbia in 2026, but the five crews will be driving classic Yugo models rather than the older 101. It looks like the route will be a little different, too. Instead of driving to Greece, catching a ferry to Egypt, and driving south across Africa, they’ll head west toward Genoa, Italy, and disembark in Tunis, Tunisia.
The roughly 6300-mile trek will, in theory, prove just how tough the original Yugo can be. In turn, this will allow the born-again brand to drum up enthusiasm for its first car in almost two decades. Is this the best marketing tactic? Time will answer that. It’s certainly one of the most fun and adventurous ones, though.
What Do Yuno About Yugo?
The original Yugo made its debut as the Zastava Yugo 45 in 1980. It was closely related to the Fiat 128, though it was much shorter than its Italian sibling and it wasn’t initially developed for American roads. Malcolm Bricklin, who founded Subaru of America and designed the Bricklin SV-1, brought the Yugo to the United States for the 1986 model year and marketed it as a new car with the price tag of a used car.
At launch, the Yugo was offered only as a two-door hatchback with a 1.1-liter four-cylinder engine rated at 55 horsepower. Demand was initially high: Yugo sold 35,959 cars in 1986 and 48,812 cars in 1987. The GV (for “Great Value”—seriously!) trim was complemented by GVL, GVS, and GVX variants for 1988, but quality-related problems had already started to torpedo the Yugo’s reputation and sales embarked on a free fall. Yugo filed for bankruptcy in January 1989, returned in 1990 with a convertible, and closed again.
The little hatchback fared better in global markets. It was fairly popular in Eastern Europe, where it hasn’t fully disappeared from the automotive landscape, and it was also sold in some Western European markets as well as in several Latin American countries. Zastava gave the Yugo a significant but not entirely elegant facelift in 2000 and made a Peugeot-sourced engine available in 2003. Production finally ended in 2008 after approximately 800,000 units were built; in an odd twist of fate, Fiat absorbed Zastava and closed it all down.
Part of Yugo lives on, however. Remember the Fiat 500L? That crossover was manufactured in the former Yugo factory.
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Perhaps enough time has passed that the stigma has faded. This operation deserves a fair shot.
I doubt it… the internet is still loaded with videos of how bad the Yugo was
The other thing is that Yugo had its followers back in the day because it was a cheap, bare basics no frills car as advertised. With the emissions, nanny controls, safety features, etc. you just can’t build that kind of car anymore
Yugo is the only car whose blue book value went up and down depending on how much gas was in the tank.
Put a new clutch in a BMW owned by a Guy that had 2 Yugos. I asked him about it and he said when the clutch first went he couldn’t afford to replace it and needed a car. Found the first Yugo at a used car joint and bought it on his credit card. Lasted him about 6 months. Still couldn’t afford the Beamer clutch so he bought another one. Finally got a few dollars together and called me to replace the clutch before his 2nd Yugo died. Tried to give me the Yugos as partial payment … I passed.
I normally don’t like to be negative, but seeing how the likes of Renault failed their comeback in the 80s, and Fiat doesn’t seem far off doing the same, well…
Now, if it came back as carbureted, MAYbe ABS, NO electronics except a decent stereo, no air bags, a manual trans, cost around $7500 – sure! What with today’s new car buyer’s expectations being sooo much higher than in the 80s, I wonder if it would succeed in the US.
I don’t think the buyer’s expectations much matter, given that such a vehicle wouldn’t even be legal to sell in the USA, given emissions and fuel economy requirements and mandates for ABS, traction control, stability control, air bags, backup cameras, crash data recorder, etc, etc, etc.
What do I know about Yugo? I know if you double its value if you fill the gas tank.
I hope they put a great big logo badge on the front,side and rear because it looks like all the rest.
I owned a used Yugo. For $300, it was a relatively dependable little car.
I had one too for a little while. Yes, it ran pretty good and never stranded me, but little things related to build quality made it a headache. Knobs falling off, a seat that got stuck and couldn’t move it forward or back, window wouldn’t close all the way. would sometimes pop out of second gear, just drove me crazy. I traded it in and got a used Subaru that was SO much better overall – and of course more expensive too.
Darko Marčeta is the designer? I thought James Bond eliminated him 3 movies ago. They should make the electric version- it will break down before it reaches the end of the extension cord anyway. And get out the various model names from before like the failed version (Nogo) or the van model (Wego) or the Israeli version (Jewgo) or the toy version (Lego) or the corporate model (Logo) or the German model (Bonngo with the vibrating sub-model Bongo) or the IKEA model (Lingo-nberry).
That’s hilarious!
The extension cord line made me laugh.
There was a guy who knew everything about cars when I was in College (he didn’t actually, he just thought he did) and he owned a Yugo. That did not help the Yugo’s reputation at the time.
That Zastava Koral GTI concept looks like a Ford Ranger grill was grafted to the front end of that thing.
Just goes to show how generic SUVs have become. You can stick any logo on these drawings and one would believe it’s the next SUV from (fill in the blank).
Just what the world needs….. Another car that looks like all the other cars!!!!
I would definitely buy a Yugo. Put a Hayabusa engine in it and you have yourself a super cheap super car. K.I.S.S.
In Puerto Rico –12A-13b swaps are the way to go….obviously making a tunnel to install a RWD transmission and a 76-82 Toyota rear end — the mother of all inventions
But the question is: Forty year from now, will Matthew Anderson want one in his yard?
Perhaps if it lives down to its reputation!
Why? There is a lot of indicators that we will have less companies offering less brands within 5 years.
All it takes is one of the stronger companies like Toyota to decide to decontent one of their smaller offerings and make it compliant in more places and actually offered for sale in North America. Look at how some of these companies do business in places like Malaysia –shared platforms but sold under brands most North Americans have never heard of.
A new Chevette based on the exact same platform as this proposed Yugo likely sells 100X more even if the Yugo is 20% cheaper to buy, at least in North America.
Take it from someone who bought Chevettes twice (twice?!), I’m not so sure about that. But I will say, despite them being truly bad cars, neither ever broke down on me.
My 1988 Yugo GV…fast facts:
As an author, I recently drove it 6,288 miles to CA and back to FL as part of my Aspire! book tour. The only thing that broke was a window crank – that was one me. I would like to join the convoy from Serbia to Tanzania. See my social media for pics. The car is wrapped to look like it was in a barn for 30 years.
Has 119,000+ miles on it. Owned it 20 years.
0-60 in NEVER
61 horsepower
Less than 150 remain on the road in the US. There are 400 Bugatti Veyron’s ($2MM car)
7-gallon gas tank = 250 miles
My hairdresser has a pair of scissors that cost more.
Made in Yugoslavia. The country and the car company are out of business.
Yugo jokes: What makes a Yugo go faster? A tow truck. Why do Yugos have a rear window defroster? To keep your hands warm while pushing it. What do you call the Yugo owner’s manual? The bus schedule. What do you call a Yugo at the top of a hill? A miracle.
Isn’t a Yugo at the top of a hill a potential “gravity speed demon”?
” Yugo here.. Yugo there when it breaks down on the interstate ( here in the US the average speed is 75mph ) and when you die YUGO!
Our family always have memories of the Yugo, we always joke about it when we cross the Mackinaw Bridge. It’s the only car that ever was blown off the bridge. The summer afterwards we were under the bridge and joked we saw the car in the water.
Pretty crude that your family’s past time is to laugh about an incident that took someone’s life.
That Yugo wasn’t “blown off the bridge”, and it wasn’t the only car that went off that bridge.
1989 Yugo
A Yugo compact car went over the railing on September 22, 1989. The driver, Leslie Ann Pluhar, died in the crash. The investigation found that Pluhar lost control of the car due to excessive speed.
1997 Ford Bronco
A Ford Bronco went over the railing in March 1997. The driver, Richard Alan Daraban, was later determined to have committed suicide.
Yugo and the words excessive speed in the same paragraph? I don’t believe that.
Aahhwwww. Youre terribly wrong. We built parts for it in Oscoda michigan, the Poor little car could fly, literally, off the Mackinac Bridge..ya all forgot about that ehh..
Make sure a 4 dr is offered-it will
be more usable to most Americans
Mark5gtiguy@yahoo.com
If you know what is Zastava then you will
know what to except. I hope they will use Zastava engineering.
Not a very good economist either if he really thinks relaunching a brand with a tarnished reputation with a powertrain the market is rejecting is wise.
I misread it. Still unlikely to work with petrol power.
Very fair article! Btw, car was not so bad, as propaganda made it… Initial version 45 hp was a bit slow, but mid 55hp and top 65 hp for a such small car (with manual transmission, of course) was a nice car to have, a funky joy for teenagers and bachelors. I would be very happy if this story comes try, I would buy it for sure! Good Luck!
P.S. It is easy to guest that I am from Serbia:)