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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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in about 1980 or so I worked at a place where a guy had a Renault 5 (I think it was). Went to lunch with him one day, and I thought I was riding in a car made out of old beer cans! It vibrated and made a lot of buzzing sounds. He loved it. I thought it was a P.O.S. Oh, and he was French and had a Russian Girl Friend.
Actually owned a LeCar for 5 years. Extremely reliable, a bit quirky, rode well. Drove it all across the US and Europe. Had to sell it when the family outgrew it. Fond memories of it.
Years ago here was a Yugo exhibit at Union Station in Washington DC – it was great.
Google “yugo exhibit union station” images
I worry about the judgement of a venture that revives the name of an often-denigrated car model that named for a country that was destroyed by a civil war. It would be curious if they were bringing back the Zastava brand, but calling their new model Yugo suggests that they don’t know enough about cars to be trusted building them.
Correction. Yugoslavia was not destroyed by civil war. It was destroyed and bombed by your country and its allies, by supporting separatist elements and implementing deep state tactics through non governmental agencies and creating false pictures in the media to justify their crime activities. And today everybody can make cars as Zastava and FIAT have been doing it successfully for decades. So stop spreading your lies and B.S. Your time is up.
Wasn’t it George Carlin who said; “Friends don’t let friends drive Yugo’s”
The best thing to do with a Yugo is set the body on a tube frame with a Chevy big block, like they used to do with the old Anglia gassers.
We already have a Yugo. Ioniq 5. Hyundai just needs to shrink it to an actual hot hatch size of the yesteryear.
Yu go nowhere!
My favorite variant, of which I saw only one, was the stretch limousine: “Ya’ll Go”.
Word on the street is Yugo’s successful comeback is timed with the return of Billy Beer.
There are twin Yugoslavia tudors, both red, sitting outside in a very small SE Kansas town. Very straight, all glass, etc. So far, I have resisted any urge to investigate further. 🙃
The Yugo name will not fly in the USA. It has such a bad reputation the name has to be changed. The highlight is it has lineage to the Fiat 500L? This must be a satire article
When I was 16, my stepfather bought a Yugo and drove 100 miles a day back and forth to work. He was a 6’4″ big guy in a little car. Think Mr. Incredible. Anyways, he drove that car until it belched its last bit of oil out the dipstick pipe and put 150k miles on it. Not too bad for a cheap car back in the day.
I tried for several years to find a Yugo to make a 1/8 or 1/4 mile car out of. My neighbor built tube chassis so the plan was, stretch the wheelbase a foot or two and set the body on the the tube frame with a BBC and eventually supercharge it. It would have made some interesting conversations as some dude had to explain to his buddies how he got beat by a Yugo! LOL!