Sense of Humor: 1988 Yugo GV
Possessing a sense of humor, particularly during adverse times, can prove vital to maintaining good mental health and well-being. The owner of this 1988 Yugo demonstrates that trait with the stickers plastering its panels. They suggests that you need to push it off a cliff to top 65mph, which says a lot about their attitude to life. They feel the little car needs a new home, and it could be one of the cheapest running and driving project cars you will find in today’s market. The Yugo is listed here on Facebook in Mansfield, Pennsylvania. You could drive it away by handing the owner $1,500. I must say a big thank you to Barn Finders Moto Rapido and Chris M for spotting this gem.
The seller’s sense of humor is further demonstrated in this photo. The sticker above the fuel filler states that the owner could double its value by filling the tank. That was just one of the many jokes coined at the expense of these little cars, and there are plenty more if you browse the net. The photos indicate this Yugo started life wearing White paint, but it has undergone a color change to its current distinctive shade of Green. It isn’t the most attractive color, but it would be super effective to camouflage this classic in the undergrowth. It holds a respectable shine, and its flaws are pretty minor. The Yugo was the cheapest car available in the North American market when it was new. It represented motoring at its most basic, but someone has added a touch of luxury by fitting a sunroof. There is visible surface corrosion in the supplied photos, but the seller indicates it is “basically rust-free.” I’m not sure exactly what that phrase means, but I believe it probably suggests that if rust is present, it will be minor. Some small trim pieces have disappeared, but a search of the usual online auction sites should easily unearth secondhand replacements. The glass looks good, and the overall impression is that a competent person could make this Yugo sparkle in their home workshop without spending a fortune.
If you’re in the market for a high-performance muscle car, the Yugo will not be your vehicle of choice. Its four-cylinder powerplant’s capacity is 1,116cc, which sends 54hp to the front wheels via a four-speed manual transmission. That isn’t a lot of power under the right foot, but the company’s focus on basic equipment levels means it tips the scales at a mere 1,742lbs. With gritted teeth and grim determination, this little classic should launch through the ¼ mile in 19.6 seconds. My research indicates that figure made it the slowest passenger car sold in 1988, but the sticker price demonstrated that buyers received what they paid for. The listing suggests this Yugo is in sound mechanical health. It runs and drives, meaning the new owner may be able to enjoy the ownership experience immediately while pondering how to tackle their build.
The initial impression of this Yugo’s interior is not positive, but things may not be as bad as they first appear. It looks pretty ugly and dirty, but a deep clean may prove the path to salvation. There are no rips or tears in the upholstered surfaces, and the plastic is in remarkable condition for a Yugo. There might be a few slight scorch marks on the driver’s seat, but they wouldn’t justify replacement. As with exterior trim, replacement parts via eBay or Craigslist are easy to find if anything inside this classic proves beyond cleaning and repair. It may not be a luxury car, but the sunroof and aftermarket CD player help lift it to the point where life inside this car could be relatively pleasant.
The 1988 Yugo is unlikely ever to find itself topping a list of the top ten most desirable vehicles in motoring history. Still, the fact we see a few at Barn Finds suggests that good examples can prove surprisingly resilient. The Yugo became unloved as time passed, but they have developed a following within a segment of the classic car scene. It is not unusual to see pristine examples fetch prices of $7,000, which is extraordinary considering the hammering these little cars received via print and social media. This Yugo is nowhere near perfect, but it is a running and driving classic that could be fun to restore or customize. If you bought it, what would be your approach?
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Comments
Does it have matching numbers?
That is the problem. If it had a driveline transplant…out of a Geo Metro, say…and the wiring harness were included…it might be worth the money. Otherwise, it’s a ticking time bomb.
I had one. For six months. It had a series of niggling little problems…for example, all the power on the car was filtered through some relay or breaker somewhere, and periodically it would dim out. Engine would quit; lights go yellow, starter not crank. Yanking the ground on the battery and replacing it, returned it to operable condition. I solved it in the end by putting a fused 10ga jumper wire from the hot terminal on the battery to a hot terminal on the fuse block. Problem fixed.
Not so the alternator belt – which jumped, and then tangled up in the timing belt. I’m here to tell you, that is NOT a non-interference design.
But, until then, I did enjoy it. Steering was light and precise. It was stable in crosswinds; fuel economy was good for a carb model. The shifter was imprecise; but with only four forward gears, it wasn’t hard to find the right one.
Yeah. A Suzuki three-pot, or a tiny Toyota powerpack, and it would be a practical car.
I had a yugo I bought at a garage sale. Didnt run properly so I pulled it home, put a new timing belt on. It was the best lil car and we had a ball in it. I had it over a year and and a half , then sold it to my cousin who drove it, another couple years . No complaints
Yes it does: zero interest and zero value.
Wonder if I could use it for Door Dash. Dunno if Sis would like it, but
maybe it might get better MPGs than
our Hyundai Accent– provided I could
keep it running long enough!
The hand warmers joke is an old favorite from Click and Clack.
There was nothing wrong with the Yugo if you used it as intended…A city car..not to cruise highways.After all it’s a rebadged Fiat 128
I agree with mike, the Yugo got a bad rap from the get-go. While I’ve never actually been in one, how bad could it be? Was the Vega any better? We, SPOILED AMERICANS,,,look at this as a joke, but in 3rd world countries, a car like this was a MAJOR purchase. Americans bought over 140,000 Yugos, and almost 800,000 worldwide. I can name a bunch of cars that never got close to that number, and it gave people in Yugoslavia jobs. I think people that rip on Yugos should be forced to live there.
Hollywood was no better. One of the funniest movies was “Drowning Mona”, that took place in a fictional town that made Yugos, and everyone drove a Yugo. Kind of like Milwaukee and Ramblers,,,
Howard, I asked my dad the same question. “How bad can it be?”
When I was purchasing a new one in 1987. He tried everything to dissuade me. I wish I listened to him because I found out how bad it could be. It had nothing to do with being a spoiled American. I only had hoped to get from point A to point B which happened to be a seven mile drive to work and back.
It could come nowhere near fulfilling that hope. It spend most of the six months I had it on the back of the tow truck. My father insisted he get a new car and give me his ten year old rusty Chevy Nova. Best move I ever made!!
Hi Joe, I say spoiled because we are. We required different vehicles due to our terrain and driving habits.. We had no business in “puddle jumpers” like this, yet a sharp salesperson can sell blankets to the Africans. We, as Americans, had no idea what foreign cars were like, a VW was the extent of it. To most, a car was a car, and one that boasted 40mpg was bound to be a hit. Well, we found out, like crappy Asian tools, there WAS a difference, and your story is typical. I’ll side with the old man, you were better off with the Nova from the get go. It’s okay, I didn’t listen to my old man either, :)
Gotta disagree on one point, Howard. By 1988, not only were Americans quite used to foreign cars, we expected most of them to deliver superior quality and, in the case of Japanese imports, superior reliability as compared to American cars. I think that was part of the Yugo’s problem – Americans expected it to be a budget Toyota, and it most definitely was not. Hyundai nearly fell victim to the same trap with its $4995 Excel, which, sadly, was worth every penny.
I liked the town Mechanic singing her ‘Mona Dearly song on guitar’. Kuppy was funny too.
Drowning Mona is a great flick. Always good for a laugh. Bette Midler is really the Divine Ms. M.
MOU
What would I use it for? Yard art! Ha ha! Years ago there was an artist who did an exhibit of these cars at Navy Pier in Chicago and they turned them into all sorts of hilarious things. One was turned into a porta potty, another a giant Zippo lighter, another into a fireplace complete with some tacky taxidermy hanging from it, etc. It was truly a funny exhibit by someone with a great sense of humor!
Was only slightly worse than the four door Renault LeCar that I had at one time. If you’re going uphill and the AC kicked in you practically came to a halt.
If the owner didn’t laugh, he’d cry.
Didn’t the spare tire reside in the engine compartment on these automotive bad dreams
Aptly named – Yu go while it sits.
Actually, when I was a volunteer fireman, we had a lady TOTAL one of these things with less than 10k on it simply by driving it into the grassy median of a freeway at speed. She was avoiding a crash that happened right in front of her. The subframe and suspension was so pliable that just running through uneven ground tore up the entire front suspension. Mind you – no culverts, concrete, or anything… just a level grass median on a rural freeway. When we pulled it back onto the shoulder, none of the 4 wheels were properly lined. Not the sturdiest of cars, for sure. I often wondered how they could possibly have passed the safety standards of the day.
The only car ever to have been blown off the Mackinac Bridge.
I want one, badly…..but not badly enough to drive to PA and get it, and pay $1500 for the privilege.
So I guess I just want one….
Listed 7 weeks ago, and nobody has jumped on it?
Well, Sale in now Pending, so I guess anything is possible.
A 20 year old (at the time) FIAT design built by unmotivated Soviet-era workers shipped across a salt-laden ocean selling for a price most people could buy on a credit card. Isn’t that the equation for the most reliable car ever built?
It could be a money making proposition, have people place bets on how many miles it will go before breaking down.
Its for shure better than waiting for the buss, on a cold day. And they are easy to work on.
My first car was a Fiat 127. They have the same driveline. As long i didnt race it, wich it could not, it was happy, and i came from a to b.
My second car, a 1976 Ford Escort wasnt better. My point is better than puplic transportation.
$1,500. I would give $15.00 for a Hugo
$1,500. I would give $15.00 for a Hugo They are a pile of crap
I don’t remember “Hugos.”
I wonder if they were ever confused with Yugos.
Those were absolutely great fun in the snow. Like riding your flexible flier
To bad the van project never came together The Wego
My father had one would chirp the front tire with a speed shift of 1 to 2 !
Had a sliding sun roof !! I finally sold it for him not many miles for $650 it was only 2 or 3 years old
My wife had a new red 85 Yugo. She says it ran ok when it ran. Two years later it was junked. Let’s not forget two bigger piles of crap, the Vega and Plymouth Cricket. She got $500 for the Yugo on trade for a Nissan Sentra.
It’s good for an electric conversion to become an EV.
You’d only need the bike conversion kit given it’s light weight.
Bob
The Yugo was one of the worst cars ever to be sold in America
I drove a friends and it shifted like garbage. I can add a car to the list of bad idea cars, that was the Chevette. Worst car I ever bought. The door was so far out of line you could stick your hand between the top of the door and the roof. Car had 2K miles and the trans. had to be rebuilt as the gears were so loud you had to shout to talk to passenger in front seat. car had 500 miles when the right front headlight burnt out and the dealer wanted to charge me to replace it. Wife loathed that car.
great comments, enjoyed the visit today.
Every auto ever made hasa specific application in mind. It is best
if applying each vehicle to that app. Modifications can assist in crossing apps
and value can B added (durability, speed, MPGs, etc).
I like much about this car. As per current lifestyle? It might fit in well. When made? no, not at all. The roof, sound system? Not needed. Auto would also fit in well (even w/performance reduction), hatch? essential ! Never saw them w/rocker chrome in the day… added by this owner/modder?
The arguments, pro and con, seem to center around the lack of status, the industrial styling, the low performance.
But none of those have to do with the Yugo’s horrid memory. Remember, a HUGE number of buyers came forward in the first year. They wanted basic transportation – at a price – and saw exactly that.
So did I. I bought mine, used – $990.00. A year old. And I got ripped off.
It wasn’t that it didn’t have a fancy stereo, or five forward gears. It was that it WOULD NOT REMAIN TOGETHER, in operating condition!
Stuff would break. ALL the TIME! My wiper motor stripped out – the bell crank had to be moved 90 degrees, so the stripped portion of the nylon gearset would pass by when the bell crank had the wipers change direction – light load on the gears at that point.
The electrical issue. The clutch failed. I’ve driven manual gearboxes since I was 15; tractor-trailers, cars and trucks, tractors. NEVER had one fail – except in a Yugo.
The heater blender-door control failed. I had to control heat (and air) entry in the cabin by putting a wood block over the air entry (piece of cut plywood, with a trash-bag to seal it). Both the blend door and the air-cutoff door cranks broke.
There was no end to the things that would break. I’ve had a lot of cheap cars – Pintos, a Chevette, a Geo Metro, and a Toyota Tercel. NEVER had such problems, not even on the 1970s Pintos.
The Yugo was…not to put too fine a point on it, garbage. Only a complete reworking with reliable components could make one practical.
That said…the basic Fiat-based package was a good one. And, FWIW…the spare tire in the engine bay, was IMHO a good idea. It was an additional cushion should there be a major frontal collision. It didn’t get overly hot, and if the engine should catch fire, replacing a tire would be the least of the owner’s concerns.
Calling the Yugo a “rebadged Fiat 128” is like saying Rosie O’Donut is a rebadged Cate Blanchett. When I moved to a closer L.A. Ford dealership, I also became (as the “new guy) the Yugo mechanic. And they were every bit a POS as you can imagine. We probably had at least 15-20 customer cars parked for months in the back in various stages of repairs or just not picked up by the customer. Even the Yugo sales rep (yes, there was still a rep) drove a Toyota. And most of the people who still drove one quit paying for them months earlier, because NOBODY would repo them. We didn’t get many of them for service, and I honestly don’t think I could get the parts to complete ANYTHING more complicated than an LOF. You couldn’t give me a Yugo. And for the record, I had a 1975 Fiat 128 back in college, and I loved it!
And my entry-level ’88 GV accumulated over 500,000 miles in thirty years with no major issues. Go figure.
Then again, I’d change the oil to factory specifications, burn premium fuel, steer around rough pavement, and replace the timing belt every 25,000 miles.
There you have it folks, a SATISFIED customer. There was bound to be a couple. Just about every car has it’s naysayers, some more than others, Kcars come to mind. I had great luck with, others not so much. As you say, maintenance was the key. Small cars had some mighty big shoes to fill and lazy Americans that never changed the oil,like my old man, or flew over RR tracks, and with Oldsmobiles you could get away with that, but small cars needed extra care, care the Europeans were used to. That, and Americans driving habits, hurry up and wait, was the kiss of death for small cars.
Howard, I get where you’re coming from. Really I do. I appreciate your response to my earlier post. Personally, for anyone to invest that type of rigorous discipline into a car that sold for $3,990 is insane. As far as filling it with premium fuel and trying to keep in on the road with excessive timing belt changes, etc., I can’t determine if that owner did it as an act of love or insanity. At any rate, I’m thankful to have gotten out from under it with dad’s 10 year old rusty Nova with a 250 and ps and pb. A little advice to the younger crowd, your fathers aren’t as dumb as you think they are!
Thank you for making my point, Joe, in pointing out you consider factory-spec maintenance “insanity” … exactly what angry buyers said when dealers asked why oil levels weren’t even ever *checked*, let alone changed, retorting that they considered the cars “disposable”.
Rambler did it right. Instead of appealing to budget buyers, the first 1950s were luxury-laden with every imaginable accessory as standard equipment and the stripped entry-level cars came later, after the marque had cemented itself as a proud-to-own car.
My point is the maintenance and fuel substitution would surpass the price of the car in no time. I can’t see the point of using anything but regular in any car that doesn’t require it. I’m all about oil changes and fluid maintenance. I don’t recall any vehicle that requires a timing belt at 25,000 miles. In my situation, the car wouldn’t stay running long enough to get to any of those maintenance items. I had to get out from under it because it was a safety issue with it stopping in the most in opportune times. I give you kudos for having that kind of discipline to keep in on the road that long. If the car was able to just stay running I’d have been happy with it but the dealer had no idea why or any desire to fix it.
God I remember the three lugnut LeCar! I was passing a car on a test drive after repairs and turned the a/c on. I thought the motor quit.
An old joke goes like this: “What’s the difference between a Jehovah’s Withess and a Yugo?” Answer: “You can close the door on a Jehovah’s Witness.”
luz 2 hate it?
Maintain 2 use it~