"What they did with the Yugo 45 was take all the best bits of the Fiat 127 and throw them away."
- Jeremy Clarkson on the Yugo
The Yugo, also marketed as the Zastava Koral and Yugo Koral, is a subcompact hatchback formerly manufactured by Zastava Automobiles, at the time a Yugoslav corporation.
Originally designed in Italy as a shortened variant of the Fiat 128, the first Yugo prototype was manufactured on 2 July 1977. Series production started on 28 November 1980. The Zastava Koral, a facelifted model, was marketed until 11 November 2008, after production ended with under eight hundred thousand cars sold.
The Yugo was marketed in the United States from 1985 to 1992 by Malcolm Bricklin, who asked Jerry Puchkoff to conceive of and produce what became the enormously successful market introduction and launch of the Yugo in 1985 with a total of 141,651 sold – peaking at 48,812 in 1987 and falling to 1,412 in 1992. Despite its moderate success, during its run in the United States and several other export markets it was subjected to much criticism over its design, safety, and reliability. As a result, the Yugo became notorious for being one of the worst cars ever made, though the car has also picked up a cult following.
Apperances[]
- In Clarkson: Unleashed on Cars, Jeremy Clarkson criticized the Yugo 45, calling it a "hateful, hateful car", and says that "you get overtaken by wildlife" in regards to its performance. He drove the Yugo out to a field, where he proceeds to destroy it with a tank.
- In Series 16, Episode 3 of Top Gear, during the Albanian Road Trip, Clarkson drove a Zastava Yugo 101 Skala 55 under the guise of it being a Bentley Mulsanne as a potential vehicle for the Albanian Mafia, while his co-hosts drove a Rolls-Royce Ghost and a Mercedes-Benz S65 AMG. James eventually drove it when Richard stole his Rolls-Royce and drove it off a cliff to his 'death', attempting to evade the Albanian Police.