What's a Yugo?

[Hudson]

Actually, it was Bricklin's job to sell the Rabbit's already in the US. After that, he dove into Fuji's catalog to see what else he could sell for them. The "Star" was what he wanted but they offered the 360; a car wholly incompatable with the products already on the market. Consumer Reports is usually given the responsibility for sinking the 360 in the US.

[2strokebloke]

I've been wanting to talk to Bricklin for years now, last year I got lucky and got into contact with Harvey Lamm, who took over SoA when Bricklin left in 1971. So here's the story.
Bricklin sold a couple thousand Lambretta motorscooters, that suposedly nobody wanted. When those were gone he turned his attention to importing the Fuji Rabbit scooter. In 1968, production of the rabbit was terminated, so Bricklin went to Japan to attempt to convince Fuji Heavy Industries to resume production. Instead he was offered a chance to become the sole importer and distributor of Subaru's automobiles. The agreement was to buy 10,000 subaru 360 cars, which he did. In all just about 12,000 subaru 360s would be imported. He began to import the FF-1 in late 1969, after Consumer Reports' "journalism" did the 360 in.
In 1971 he left SoA but remained a stockholder.
I also talked to the man who owned the docks where 360s were unloaded from ships and stored, it was the same place where Volvos fo the western U.S. were stored, so a good friend Bob Sinclair was also able to provide some information too.
I still hope to be able to talk Bricklin, Harvey wasn't thrilled to be talking about the 360, and left many questions unanswered because he didn't know all what Bricklin had done before he became CEO.

[Sean]

Originally posted by 2strokebloke
I've been wanting to talk to Bricklin for years now, last year I got lucky and got into contact with Harvey Lamm, who took over SoA when Bricklin left in 1971. So here's the story.
Bricklin sold a couple thousand Lambretta motorscooters, that suposedly nobody wanted. When those were gone he turned his attention to importing the Fuji Rabbit scooter. In 1968, production of the rabbit was terminated, so Bricklin went to Japan to attempt to convince Fuji Heavy Industries to resume production. Instead he was offered a chance to become the sole importer and distributor of Subaru's automobiles. The agreement was to buy 10,000 subaru 360 cars, which he did. In all just about 12,000 subaru 360s would be imported. He began to import the FF-1 in late 1969, after Consumer Reports' "journalism" did the 360 in.
In 1971 he left SoA but remained a stockholder.
I also talked to the man who owned the docks where 360s were unloaded from ships and stored, it was the same place where Volvos fo the western U.S. were stored, so a good friend Bob Sinclair was also able to provide some information too.
I still hope to be able to talk Bricklin, Harvey wasn't thrilled to be talking about the 360, and left many questions unanswered because he didn't know all what Bricklin had done before he became CEO.

I'v been trying to think of something clever to say for the past five minutes about people studing car history, economy car history in perticular, but I give up.

[Hudson]

There are many people who study car history. If you're interested in it, check out www.autohistory.org.

[JGribin]

My parents and I have had a succession of cars over my life. The first car they ever bought was a new 1965 Volkswagen Beetle. They drove that until 1975, when they bought a new Mercedes-Benz 240D. That was an amazing economy car, getting excellent fuel economy, combined with running for 437k miles before breaking down for the first time That was in 1985. in 1980 my parents bought another car for my mom, because they both needed a car, they got a Subaru. My parents sold the 240D to my aunt, who ran it until 1990, 510k. In 85, my mom and dad bought a Mercedes-Benz 300D. In 1988, with 262k miles on it, two of the Subies motor's rods tunnelled their way free because my mom acidentally shifted from third to first(!). The oil caught fire and that was the end of that car. We had not budgeted money for a car then so we bought a Yugo. I still remember that car... more on that in a moment. The Yugo timing belt had been replaced regularly, but in 1995 the job was skipped due to a) a lack of parts, and b) a lack of time... whats a couple of thousands of miles? A lot, because the timing belt snapped. Due to that happening, and the 300D being 10 years and 617k miles old, they decided to replace both cars. We went to the Mercedes-Benz dealership. They offered us a token $1 for the Yugo and $5k for the Mercedes. Cool. We bought two 1995 MBs, a C220 and a E300D, both pricinply stripped, except the C220 had climate-control, regretably. As usual, the AC for the E300D lasted until 2000. The C220s lasted untill 1998, but to hell with it we never use it anyway. I got the C220 with 125k on it for 2001 and my mom got an Audi A6. My dad still is driving the E300D which has 410k on it last time I checked. I put a large Turbo on my C220 which I got out of a friends Saab.

Anyway, my automotive history is to account for the large amounts of driving my family does. The E300D sould reach 1 mil cause my dad hates the new one. POS comparatively. Also, I want to point out that in addition to a Yugo, we have generally also owned the best cars out there (Mercedes)

The Yugo was a nice car. It did not have the build quality of the Mercedes. Nor should it have. These were all old school Mercedes, built to be the best with price set after cost was figured, not like the POS engineered to a price cars you see today. We beat the living hell out of those cars... we all have lead feet. But the Yugo was a solid peice of machinery. SOLID. The car's body was like a tank. The gauge of metal was very thick. It was not well screwed to together in some places, and it caused rattles, but the body was not one of those places.
It gave us a good 230k miles of extremely reliable service. It only broke down twice. It probably could have gone further.
The jokes that I have read in this thread about them being POS cars, about not lasting a long time, about flatening like a cardboard box in an accident... they are all not true. I had a friend who got hit by a Ford Explorer at about 45 MPH. The car was totalled, but my friend kicked out the door, and walked away. 230k is an impressive mileage for a $5k car. Breaking down twice is not impressive, but its not POS territory. I have a friend with a Kia Sedona that has broken down way more than that. We might have bought another one if they had been around. We always liked solid cars, and in 1995 the C220 was simply the cheapest one out there. Volvos 240 was out of production then.

[-Car_Freak-]

Originally Posted by MaximusGTR

What's a Yugo?

Short for Yugoslavia, I think, because I've never heard about that car here in the States

Yugo does stand for yugoslavia but its a mark of zastava factory. the cars vere wery popular here(i can tell im from croatia) and they are still made today but in small numbers. The cars arent anything like mercedes or bmw but they sure are better than polish fiats and some ladas etc.

[pac4life]

Hey dont slag on Yugos so much. Sure they are pretty unreliable but they're coming from a war torn country thats still trying to recover. I should know, im Bosnian.

[i-is-in-da-house]

Dude, yugos rock, they are the car of my country. how can u now know what it is.

YUGOSLAViA Rox

[igjuro]

This is YUGO!
Photo credit: http://www.cars-10.com/2010/05/cars-...ng-unreliable/

[kingyugo]

I've seen them. basically, they look like that VW hatchback shrunken down into a two door. they are very basic.