Today, the car which is synonymous with Serbia and the old Yugoslavia, the Yugo, will for the last time roll off the production line. The various models of the Yugo have been produced by Kragujevac-based Zastava since 1981. Cheap, affordable and reliable (?), they soon took off across the entire Yugoslavia and even broke into the Italian, German, and United States markets, as well as the British:
With the signing of a memorandum of understanding with Fiat, the Zastava factory will be producing two brand new Fiat models instead of the much loved Yugo. Yugos can still be seen in abundance on the streets of Belgrade and throughout the rest of Serbia. It’s estimated that 1 in 3 Serbs have owned a Yugo.
To mark this historic day, the BBC have been round Belgrade and in this video speak to some young Belgraders about their ‘pimped-up’ Yugos with spoilers, stereo systems and refurbished interiors. In another video, the reporter even goes for a cruise in downtown Belgrade with Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Bozidar Djelic in his bright yellow Yugo convertible!
Despite the halt in production, it’s a safe bet to say that the Yugo is going to be around for a long time to come.
I did always want a Yugo. Shame I can’t drive!
Do you have a Yugo? What do you think of the much-loved Yugo? Click here to have your say.
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on Nov 20th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
I did my drivers tests in a Yugo. It’s very difficult to drive, but once you can drive a Yugo, any other car seems easier to drive, so I guess it was a good thing I practiced in it.
on Nov 20th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
BTW, did you notice that Djelic does a very big traffic violation when he turns from Kneza Milosa left to Terazije
on Nov 20th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Haha! No, I didn’t notice. Classic!
on Nov 23rd, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Whenever I saw a Yugo during my stay in Serbia, I’d get so nostalgic. I took a picture of one of them as well as of other cars from my childhood and uploaded them to Facebook :p
My sister told me that parents in the US used to buy a Yugo for their kids as their first car, so they had something cheap to smash O_O
on Nov 23rd, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Haha how did I manage to misspell my own name??
on Nov 24th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
What Amila says is true, Yugo is a great first car. So when buying a Yugo try to find out if one of the previous owners was a kid or say, some old lady. It usually makes a huge difference.
Btw, this media frenzy about the Yugo production coming to a halt causes everyone to look at it with nostalgia and forget for a moment what a crappy car it really is
(now that I mention it, I remembered – I believe there’s a book called “Crap cars” with Yugo on the covers)
on Dec 1st, 2008 at 2:49 am
[...] Balkan File and Eternal Remont are saying good-bye to the Yugo cars; the latter posts this joke: “Q: So, what do you call the shock absorbers inside a Yugo? A: Passengers.” Posted by Veronica Khokhlova Print Version Share This [...]
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