Yugos ... whats the deal...

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Yea I got it for that price. This is such an underrated movie. Hilarious much longer than most comedies. I was still laughing at the end of the movie, where as most, pull the story together and get lame, this one kept being hilarious. I wish more people could see this movie, they would not be dissappointed.

Think they went down with the ship when Renault went bankrupt, or just pulled out of the US, circa 1982. If any car was worse than the Yugo, it was probably the Renault Le Car!

I remember Le Car! Yes, it was a Renault, ( VERY small ) and imported in the 70's. I went to the Los Angeles International Auto Show in 1975 or 76 - not sure exactly when. My friend and I got in this car and could barely get in. I was in the drivers seat and reached to adjust the rear view mirror when it came off in my hand! Think about it, a new car at an Auto show falling apart! We quickly exited the vehicle.

Robert

The cop cars are Dodge Omnis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_Omni

In 1985 3k would have bought a damn good used car. A much better idea than a "new" Yugo that would turn into scrap metal in a year or two. Yugo is a derivative of FIAT----a tempermental, unreliable car that always had a terrible reputation in this country.

Most "communist" cars were pretty awful. The Czech Skoda wasn't too bad. And the Russian ZAZ sedan had a feature found nowhere else: a droppable rear floor pan for ice fishing! Also handy for dumping bodies or stopping the car with one's feet if brake pads weren't included in the last Five Year Plan.

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(I just happened to catch about half of this movie over broadcast TV, and I did notice all the YUGOs... I wondered if that was a "product placement" thing that YUGO agreed to help pay for part of making the movie, of if they were used for humor.)

Regarding Subaru:

Actually, I knew a guy and his wife that owned and drove a nice little Subaru in the mid 1970s.

He showed me the invoice, and it was just over the mid $3000, bought new!
He and his wife both liked that car, and both drove it. Honestly, there was nothing outstanding about it, good or bad. If you wanted 'basic' transportation, that would have been a good choice. When he opened the hood though, the engine was really small. (I've seen Yugo cars, but never under their hood.) In fact, the spare tire was mounted on the firewall that separated the engine compartment from the passenger compartment. I had the feeling that if the engine was not bolted down, I could have lifted it out of the car with my bare hands. (Ah, the optimism of being youthful...) I did ride in the car with them a couple times, and it rode OK with three adults in it, but the back seat was a bit small for me.

And one other thing caught my attention while we were looking under the hood. The spare tire valve stem had a small hose hooked to it, and it went to the windshield washer box, like the washer fluid hose. I asked him what that was for, and he explained it used the air pressure from the spare tire instead of having a mechanical pump for the window washer fluid! (VW was doing the same thing in their "beetles"...)

I was a little concerned about having the tire near the heat of the engine, but they had the car two years, and had no problems with that. No rotting rubber. Maintenance was just about the same as other cars, but you needed to keep up with the spare tire air pressure, "just in case". (And it was a 13" tire, half the price of the 14" more standard USA size tires at the time).

I did more checking on that brand, and it was a little surprising that there were NO actual bad reviews to be found. There were comments that were more personal preference things, but no "piece of junk" style comments.
Yugo on the other hand... Well, there were lots of bad comments about the quality, reliability, and even usability of that brand. I heard plenty of comments about plastic body panels (like doors, for instance), but never bothered to check on that with all the other bad comments, including that the cars were made of plastic, not metal.



At the time I was interested, I was driving a big 4-door V-8, and eventually bought another V-8 a couple years later (used)... maybe that was just habit.
One thing I did take as part of my decision process was whether I could drive my newer vehicle through the midwest USA, and be able to get spare/repair parts if it broke down. Back in the days before the internet, researching that was slow and painful, but the answer was "no". If it broke down anywhere there was no Subaru dealership, it was going to be a while before parts could get shipped to a repair shop that would work on an imported car.
(Yes, that required metric tools, among other things...)