Zavasta For Sale. One Careless Owner
The Associated Press (via The Detroit News) reports that the car company that built the Yugo will be up for sale come springtime. Zastava is government-owned carmaker. Is only one in Serbia. With an asking price of less than $4k, the Yugo (I bet you were thinking the company) arrived in the US in 1986. The lackluster Yugo quickly became the poster child for cheaply made cars; Consumer Reports magazine claimed it “barely qualified as a car." Zastava produced some 15k cars in 2006, which is “far below” the company's potential capacity of 60k cars a year. Looking for a way out of the car biz, the government’s Privatization Agency placed an ad in the Politika Daily newspaper announcing that some 90 percent of the company’s shares will be sold off next April. The asking price for Zastava will be made public in the spring, but privatization minister Mladjan Dinkic says he expects “at least two major international companies to take part in the bidding." Perhaps VW fancies one more European economy brand to add to SEAT, Skoda and VW. Perhaps not.
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I was amazed to see a Yugo setting in the parking lot of a shopping mall in TN maybe 3-4 years ago. Wish I had stuck around to talk to the driver. Also, I remember when the US was involved in bombing Yugoslavia a few years ago and being puzzled that we had bombed the Yugo factory where some kind of trucks, IIRC, were made for their military. I thought we'd have better hindered their operation letting them keep producing and (try to) use what came out of the factory.
I remember test driving a Red '88 model at Palmetto Ford (which had Yugo and even the Fiat X 1/9, for a short time) and while shifting I could see through the gearshift boot to the pavement. Just one of those things you just don't forget. I went a bought a base model Nissan Hardbody truck later that day. Has it really been almost 20 years ago?
I remember a classmate at university purchased one of these new to get around. The car was noteworthy in that it was the only vehicle I have ever seen that rust through the middle of the roof first. Quite a distinction.
@PAHASKA: "About every 100 miles, the exhaust pipes would vibrate loose from the cylinders. The noise would slowly increase until I would get out and tighten them up." That's a cool story. @tdoyle: We had a family friend who lived at our compound in Rome, circa 1979, who was fortunate enough o be at a light when her car seat crashed through the rusted-out floor of her immaculate 1978 white X1/9. It doesn't rain in Rome very much at all.