1. Yugo
They refer to Yugo with everything from "The worst car in history" to "Our beloved one, we never should have sold it".
It was based on a Fiat 127, and the first Yugo design was created in Turin, Italy.
2 prototypes of Yugo were given to Josip Broz Tito as a gift; it is unknown what happened to them.
Yugo was a dream car of everyone in Yugoslavia, because of its price, the fact that the spare parts were very cheap and the fuel consumption was fairly low.
It was said that, if you forget where you parked your Yugo, you just pick another one, turn the key and drive.
Also, the police would only stop you if one of your wheels falls off right in front of them, otherwise you're in stealth mode.
The mass production of Yugo was set in motion in 1980. It hit the US premiere in 1987, being the cheapest car in the US.
It was a subject of many jokes, including the one "How do you double the value of a Yugo? You put some gas in the tank".
Although it was a communist-made car sold in Reagan's America, dealers had customers lining up to buy one.
Yugo America sold an astonishing 1050 cars in a single day.
The end came in 1992, when Yugo America went bankrupt due to the civil war that was raging in Yugoslavia.
As the critics say - "oddly enough" there was even a Cabrio version of this little cheap little hatchback.
The Yugo Cabrio
was a brainchild of Yugo America product development executive who conceived a flagship model in 1987 and the prototype was developed by Peter Muscat, the engineer behind the ASC/McLaren Capri and Mustang roadsters. The production was started in 1990.
Only 500 Cabrios were ever built, 100 exported to USA, 25 destroyed in crash tests.
And we have quite a few restored ones!
2. Zastava 750 / Fića
The most beloved car. The wheels of the country, the car that motorized Yugoslavia.
The story about the legendary car begins in the 50's, when there was a great need for a small car, just a bit bigger than the legendary Fiat 500, that would, like its predecessor, be available for purchase to everyone.
The new car - the Fiat 600, was showcased in 1955 in Geneva. The connection between Kragujevac and Fiat came quickly; Yugoslavia got the licence to produce this car with the name Zastava 750.
By 1985, when the production was finished, 923.487 Fićas were made.
It was everybody's first car. Some older people start crying when they see one in the street or on the gas station.
It became a symbol of nostalgia and a bohemian status symbol.
3. Zastava 101
It first emerged in October 1971 as the Zastava (Yugo) 101.
Derived from Italy's Fiat 128 and arriving three years before Volkswagen's Golf, it had front-wheel-drive in an era most manufacturers were still years away from making the switch.
In 1973, the Zastava 101 won its class in the International Tour d'Europe rally.
The following year, a Zastava 101 was reportedly faster than its Porche competition over several stages.
In 1975, Zastava organized an expedition from Kragujevac to Kilimanjaro. Five brand-new, standard Zastava 101 cars and 11 crewmembers travelled African deserts and savanna, finishing their 45 day expedition on the top of Kilimanjaro.
In 1979 the car has been crowned Yugoslavia's Car of the Decade.
