If you've ever googled “worst car of all time,” you’ve probably come across the Yugo.
My parents bought a Zastava Yugo 45 in 1990. At the time, the car was only four years old and had very low mileage. It was their first major purchase after getting married, and they created many happy memories with it. In fact, many people across the former Yugoslavia have fond memories of this little car—there’s even a song about it.
Unfortunately, our Yugo disappeared along with most of our other belongings during the war that began just two years later. All that survived was the vehicle registration certificate.
The Yugo was based on a Fiat design and came with a small 0.9-liter engine. It was produced in the Zastava factory in Kragujevac, Serbia. Parts were sourced from all over Yugoslavia: electrical components came from Nova Gorica, Slovenia; interior fittings from Split, Croatia; brakes from Varaždin, Croatia; engine electronics from Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina; and the seats, seatbelts, locks, and mirrors from Ohrid, Macedonia. The final assembly was completed in Kragujevac.
The earliest models were extremely basic and plagued with poor quality control. However, by around 1987, most of the major issues had been resolved. The general consensus is that the models produced between 1987 and 1991 were the best Yugos ever made. Many of them are still running on the roads of the former Yugoslavia nearly 40 years later, with no major engine problems and remarkably little rust.
As I mentioned, many Yugoslavs hold warm memories of the Yugo. There are even Yugo clubs scattered across Europe. So why is it that when you search for information about the car, you rarely come across anything positive? The Yugo’s reputation took a nosedive when this car—designed for Yugoslav conditions—was exported to the United States. Priced at just $3,999, many American buyers treated it as a disposable vehicle. Basic maintenance, like oil changes, was often ignored.
Soon, the car became the butt of countless jokes. Its image was further damaged when it was featured (unflatteringly) in a few movies. U.S. magazines routinely ranked it among the worst cars ever made. But I’d be curious to see how long some oversized, ugly, gas-guzzling American shitboxes would last on rough Yugoslav roads. It's also worth noting that, at the time, the Yugo was the only car from a socialist country being imported into Reagan-era America. That probably didn’t help.
After the breakup of Yugoslavia, Zastava had to source parts locally within Serbia. Production continued, albeit with significant challenges. During NATO’s 1999 democratic and humanitarian bombing of Yugoslavia—where industry and infrastructure were heavily targeted—the Kragujevac factory was bombed multiple times. This happened despite the factory workers publicly declaring that they would stay behind after their shifts to physically shield the plant, which provided livelihoods for their families.
More than 120 workers were injured in those attacks, some of them severely. Many others, exposed to toxic chemicals like the carcinogenic pyralene released during the bombing, later developed serious illnesses—over 1,000 workers were diagnosed with cancer in the years that followed. Still, despite the devastation and human cost, the factory was rebuilt, and production resumed in 2000. By the time the last Yugo rolled off the assembly line in 2008, around 795,000 units had been produced.
That same year, the factory declared bankruptcy and was finally “liberated” from its local workers and sold to Italian automaker Fiat.
Even twenty years after production stopped, and thirty five years after the last Yugo was exported to the US, the car still sparks debate—especially from arrogant American commentators who never miss a chance to mock it. It’s fascinating how much energy some people still put into ridiculing a little car that dared to come from a group of South Slavs who built something of their own. Maybe it wasn’t perfect, but it was ours—and it worked, and still works. For a car that’s supposedly the worst of all time, it sure left one hell of a legacy.