It was a robust companion, an export success, and it will always put a big smile on your face: The Zastava Yugo, the Eastern European bargain-basement car that has advanced to cult status. The angular subcompact was launched on its home market almost 45 years ago, based on Fiat technology and assembled in the Zastava factory in Kragujevac. It was a hit on the domestic market and was subsequently exported, where it earned quite a bit of respect.
As readers of this site undoubtedly know, the Yugo even made it to the USA, and with a launch price of just $3,990 it significantly undercut all other cars on the market. There was a nicely designed convertible, and Zastava kept working on derivatives — though most of them never made it to dealers. The export success came to an abrupt end with the Yugoslavia War, but production eventually resumed. Two major facelifts followed, and though it left the U.S. market in 1992 the small car remained in production until 2008.
Throughout its production life, the Yugo was a symbol of basic mobility, but in recent years, it has become an icon of pop culture. There are books and screen appearances, one of them has been floating around Brooklyn — everyone recognizes the Yugo. Even in its home of the Balkans, its nostalgic transfiguration has set in.
Now there are plans for it to make a comeback, but as an entirely new vehicle. The first sketches of the new Yugo have just been released, a scale model is set to be unveiled this year, and you should mark the 2027 Belgrade Expo to see the full-scale, running prototype.
The project is the brainchild of Prof. Dr. Aleksandar Bjelić , a well-known name in the German automotive and supplier industry. He has secured the trademark rights internationally. Bjelić has been working in high-level marketing positions for almost two decades; an engineer and economist, he taught at the college in Aalen near Stuttgart and teaches economics at the University of Belgrade.
Initial funding for brand rights, concept and design is handled by himself, but we suspect development and investment partners are welcome.
Serbian designer Darko Marčeta is responsible for the design. With his first renderings, Marčeta has perfectly captured the proportions and essence of the classic Yugo; the retro-futuristic style is somewhat reminiscent of the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and the N74 concept.
But unlike those Korean cars, the Next Yugo will be positioned as an affordable entry-level car. The technical basis will be an established platform from a cooperation partner that Bjelić does not want to disclose yet. The car will meet all emissions and safety regulations, and it will be positioned at the lower end of the market, just like the initial Yugo.
While a fully electric version is conceivable, plans are for the new Yugo to be launched with combustion engines. That will keep it affordable and fun, while setting the new Yugo apart from other retro projects such as the new Renault 5 or the VW ID.Buzz.
Obviously, 2027 is a long time away, so next year Bjelić will launch a rally from Kragujevac across Africa to Mt. Kilimanjaro; it will be a rerun of a legendary expedition, conducted in 1975 with five Zastava 101 models, the predecessor of the Yugo.
This time, five classic Yugos will be brave the desert slopes, technically prepared specifically for the event. The drive is supposed to demonstrate the robustness of the original Yugo – and, more importantly, whet your appetite for the new model.
Obviously, these are just plans and there’s plenty of work between now and it becoming a reality. Still, I’ve always liked the Yugo (but then, one of my daily drivers is a Lada Niva). In an alternative timeline, the original Yugo could have replaced the Fiat 127/147. In a world of portly and expensive new EVs, filled to the brim with nanny systems and massive screens, I think a cheap and fun car like the new Yugo might be exactly what the world needs.
Maybe it’s just the silhouette, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the “cooperating partner” was VAG.
Could also be Fiat/Stellantis…
Even the wheel design makes me think that, first thing when I saw it was trying to remember which GTI those came from
Yeah, it looks like a new take on the OG Golf – which would be no bad thing… My wife’s Polo is now 7 YO, and she would love something small and basic from VAG to replace it.
I don’t think this project could find a Western cooperating partner, due to geopolitical reasons. Serbia is a puppet state of Russia, and most automakers left that market.
If anything, they could find Russian or Chinese backing (China already owns a big part of the Serbian economy).
The guy is German and it says he has international trademark rights, so I’m just going with the assumption they’re gonna rebadge something as a Yugo, and that something can come from/be built anywhere. Now that you mention it, China would be super easy and already has a ton of stuff to work off of, plus it would be cheaper than anything from VAG.
From what I can gather, he’s Serbian but worked in Germany. And yes, it makes sense to rebadge something Chinese as a Yugo, maybe with a facelift to make it closer to the renders.
My mind is certainly open to being wrong, but it seems like over the past few years, when some old, nostalgic brand gets revived…it just ends up being a crypto/NFT scam. I swear to all the car and jazz gods, if this is actually happening, it better not be a crypto scam.
Yeah, unfortunately it sounds very, very, very sketchy.
I would go on that road trip to Kilimanjaro, but would Yugo?
COTD, period.
I’d love to see another affordable new option on the market, but I don’t see a viable path in the US unless they can make it both cheap and profitable as a standalone model. The costs involved in federalizing a new vehicle and setting up distribution would likely mean they have to move serious numbers from the get go. Most established automakers here have either cut back or completely abandoned the economy sedan/hatchback segment because it’s much easier to sell and make a profit on crossovers.
Probably accurate, but moot — the way things are looking now, everyone’s going to be inefficiently creating stuff for their own home markets only. The only thing left to be traded freely is AI and disinformation. 🙂
Serbia: That pesky war suspended production. Let’s reboot the Yugo!
Mate Rimac: Hold my beer.
SorryNotSorry.
The original Yugo and this version’s (if it happens) big completion will be a used car. Used cars are only going to be more plentiful and infinitely more desirable than an econobox.
To anyone that can do their own maintenance, this has always been true. More than twice the car for less than half the price, if bought right.
While I’m a bit nostalgic about the old Soviet bloc cars, I don’t see this going anywhere. While Yugo may have a cult following, that cult did not and does not crave a modern version of it. By the time they finish all the specs, regs and “comforts”, it will be neither cheap nor particularly special. Cue in just another car.
There is a reason why hardly any revival of anything once cool is measurably successful. The spirit is long gone, the generation that remembers it is dying or dead already, times have changes and we’ve moved on.
The ugly, rudimentary VW bus was once the staple of the hippy lifestyle. I don’t see a swath of new hippies flocking to a VW Buzz (shedding nostalgic tears, no less). Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a really good and original looking minivan (especially the SWB version we don’t get), as far as retro goes it’s pretty tits. But the manufacturers think they know what made those cars special – they have no idea.
Given the amount and quality of existent competition in Europe, the only way to set the new Yugo apart is to embed it into Serbian nationalism and cater to that clientele. It will do well in its home country, but not in the rest of Europe, especially the Balkans. After all, who -else- wants to drive a symbol of genocide and ethnic cleansing?
Oh, what do you mean with Torch wanting to have a word with me?
“After all, who -else- wants to drive a symbol of genocide and ethnic cleansing?”
MAGA Republicans maybe?
Well, the war in the Balkans ended when the NATO bombed Serbia with the support of the US. But that was Clinton (albeit with unanimous bipartisan support).
Now, Serbia is a puppet-state to Russia, so yes, MAGA Republicans would feel at home too.
The professor with the idea for this teaches in Belgrade and Serbia is the closest thing to a successor state the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia has, but wasn’t the Yugo built in Zagreb, which is in Croatia and hence part of the (horrors! And not our kind of people anymore if JD Vance is to be believed) EU? I know that it probably will be built in Serbia if it’s built at all, but if it were built in Zagreb again the current American right would have to look back to the Ustaše to really feel at home.
Dude, that was just… technically correct?
(shrivers with the sole mention of the Ustashas)
Honestly. I thought I overdid the analogy, even considering usual rhetorical hyperbole. They were just awful and right down there with the worst of the Germans.
I don’t know. I think the VW Buzz is going to flop because they apparently dropped acid before pricing it. Not many are going to pay that much for that little.
As to the regs, I expect a number of safety-related regulations that automakers hate are going to go away before long. Traffic deaths will spike, but who cares when it means Musk gets to install half-baked driver assist packages and claim they’re fully autonomous self-driving systems?
The reason this will fail is the same reason a lot of things are going to fail. No one is going to be doing any better financially over the next 4+ years unless they’re already rich. And if they’re already rich, they’re buying Maybachs and Rolls, not Yugo. The rest of us are going to hold on to what we have because we know the economy is going to end up going to shit, and the tariffs are going to make cars considerably more expensive than the ridiculous prices they already demand.
And the Buzz is so striking in real life. Finally saw one in green/white the other day, definitely like nothing out there. Its a shame about the pricing
“The ugly, rudimentary VW bus was once the staple of the hippy lifestyle. I don’t see a swath of new hippies flocking to a VW Buzz (shedding nostalgic tears, no less). “
Another factor… those hippies/baby boomers have gotten soft as they aged. And these days, they “can’t survive” without the creature comforts like A/C that they survived without when they were young.
“But the manufacturers think they know what made those cars special – they have no idea.”
That’s typical. And a lot of that is due to laziness and a desire to maintain fat gross margins.
” as far as retro goes it’s pretty tits. “
Tits?
That means “cool” or “good.”
I think tits are more hot than cool.
LOL
Just like House’s motorcycle jacket. It keeps him warm and cool at the same time.
You are on the right track. The original Beetle was great, cheap and also awful in many ways. The New Beetle sold in a small fraction of its numbers.
The New Yugo will sell in a small fraction of the numbers of the original. It will be successful only if it’s at least equal in quality to a Kia, and at half the price.
This reminds me of the Tata Nano – small, cheap, hyped, anticipated, and ultimately a failure.
A successor to the beetle would be very welcome. Key, ignition, Speedo, gas gauge, heat, maybe a/c, dials and switches, be still my heart but a 5 speed? Hell even a 4 speed manual. Dacia priced and U S federalized assuming the twit in charge doesn’t tariff it to death. Oh wait. By 28 the orange scum will be gone. I can hope right?
I’d say A/C is not optional anymore. In addition to drawing moisture out of the cabin when it’s humid but neither particularly hot nor cold, we’re getting weekslong runs of temps that don’t go below 80° at night in the summer in the southeast US. The cars, the roads are perpetually heat-soaked for months.
This…the damn heat sucks.
Cannot tell if serious.
Fantastic either way.
My first car was a Yugo. It did NOT put a big smile on my face, I can promise you that. It was made from the cheapest possible materials, and they failed regularly. Inside door handle snapped on a sunny spring day because ??? The door cards were cracked by an errant nerf football that bounced into the car.
It was impossibly slow, the nasty 4-speed shifter was awful. Rubbery shifter that had to bang its way through a bag of rocks. It had brakes, so that’s good, but it also LOVED to overheat despite no reason that anyone could determine.
The hood and hatch were rusting at 4 years, the hatch would bang around (despite being fully latched) on bumpy roads, and did I mention it was horribly slow?
I used to drive around (thankful that I had a car at all), playing the game “that’s better than mine”. It was easy, as you drove, and saw a car, if the car you saw was a better car than the Yugo, then you would say “that car is better than mine”. I won the hell out of that game.
Prone to mysterious overheating…slow AF..
Sounds like an ignition timing issue or weak spark.
I remember these being offloaded from the hauler when new.
At the Yugo dealer which became the KIA dealer shortly thereafter…
The amount of rust already present was almost beyond belief.
There are still a couple of rusted hulks living as “lawn art” in my rural area.
Usually replaced by newer KIA and Hyundai crap.
Some lessons are hard to learn apparently.
Don’t you have to be striving to reclaim a position of former glory for it to be a comeback?
Otherwise it’s just a come.
While I truly get the nostalgic-ironic appeal, I don’t think any faithful reproduction is going to get anyone to come.
Reminds me of an old Liberace joke.
And no, I won’t repeat it to you. Times have changed.
In the summer of 1990 my future was so bright I had to wear shades. My part time job was in my field and paid college and my 1/3 of the apartment with spare change in me pocket. So what does a young man do with this sudden windfall? Buy four Yugos for $500 bucks with a few friends and play car polo with them, long before any of us had heard of Top Gear.
The great day arrived. Each of us had taken responsibility for one of the units, tuning and massaging them into running condition for the Grass Gran Prix. Unfortunately the red one did not make it and we had to last minute substitute a Renault Alliance – no harm, no foul, similar class.
We launched from 100 feet towards a horse exercise ball, each wearing a 70’s era open face motorcycle helmet. Two Yugos did not survive the initial impact, so the competition devolved into an Eastern-Western European knife fight in a closet. I stood on the roof of my red dead Yugo as my lucky buddies bashed it out, occasionally hitting the ball as well. Two minutes later it was over.
Buyers remorse quickly set in until we realized they were all fixable. We got a full summers worth of fun out of them before we just lost interest and my buddy’s dad got tired of driving the tractor around them.
I love that it is a 2-door. It Keeps the simple and cheap vibes.
It needs to be a 4 door though.
Man, this would be a great opportunity for an inexpensive, no-frills, touchscreen-lacking, repairable, open-source, RWD EV for under $15,000USD.
I’d buy it right now. I’m not joking.
Can’t one get that in a Mitsubishi i-MiEV?
Its MSRP was like $24k, and it had very short range because it combined a small battery with mediocre aerodynamics.
Consider the $11,400 BYD Seagull as a basepoint with regard to what could be done. Improve the aerodynamics, get rid of the spyware, and make it compatible with Tesla’s supercharger network. This is the type of EV the world needs.
Used those Mitsubishis go for a lot less. This one was $3500:
https://www.thedrive.com/news/my-3500-mitsubishi-i-miev-proves-45-miles-of-ev-range-might-be-enough
and I’m seeing several around the country for $4k and under:
https://wyoming.craigslist.org/search/kaycee-wy/cta?auto_fuel_type=4&lat=43.6689&lon=-106.7061&max_price=4000&query=mitsubishi%20i-MiEV&search_distance=1000&sort=priceasc#search=1~gallery~0~0
https://www.edmunds.com/inventory/srp.html?inventorytype=used%2Ccpo&make=mitsubishi&model=mitsubishi%7Ci-miev&sort=distance%3Aasc&radius=6000&price=3000-4000
As an abandoned platform I think they are ripe for tinkering with. They’re also RWD.
Any time I hear about the Yugo, I always think of this sassy Mexican import made out of clay. RIP Phil
https://youtu.be/F02P2JO7yfc?si=GPnSexpmKHcjqA2e
Affordable small car in 2027? I’m guessing that means 3000lbs and $35,000?
Heh. “Affordable”. By maybe 20% of the population.
Did it though?
Respect from who? Other than Torch, of course.
Hey! I’m still in the room!
Americans don’t want cheap fun cars, they wanted bloated SUVs and trucks and are happy to pay for them.
The mirage doing as well as it has says there’s still a market. It’s a small one yes, but there’s still some demand.
The fact that there is exactly one tells you all you need to know.
Honda Fit sold well, and was taking away sales from the Civic hatch is why it was killed. Corolla still sells by the truckload, yes the majority of cars are big, but there are still tons of strong selling smaller cheaper cars.
Because Americans are easily swayed by giant corporations to buy stuff they do not need to look richer than they are. Aspirational posing right into the poor house.
When I see someone driving a full-sized, newish pickup, I see a guy who is working years of his life away to pay interest to some bank halfway across the country.
Then when he has it finally paid off, and wants to sell it, it’ll be worth a fifth of what he paid for it.
Posing is right. Shiny new work vehicles aren’t for keeping up with the Joneses.
Exactly.
I sure hope those people I don’t know or like really think I’m special because of my car loan!
Daily a Lada?! Tell me more!
Would you rather: daily a Lada or laid by a Dada(ist)?
I dunno. How long ago did the Dada(ist) in question have a shower and engage in even rudimentary hygene?
I understand making the urinal on its side a piece of art. I didn’t know they also wanted to smell like one lol
While in high school I went to our local car show when the Yugo was launched. The one they had on the floor didn’t survive a day of visitors looking at it. The door latch stopped working, so the door just gave you a hollow, metallic rebound sound when you tried to close it. The driver’s side door card had come mostly detached as well. Even the seat had mostly collapsed, and the slide latch failed, so you couldn’t reposition the seat.
I like cheap, simple cars but the fact the Yugo was a cheap car doesn’t mean it was a good cheap car. The Yugo was miles worse than ’84 Chevette that I was driving at the time. A car I had picked up for $1200 with 27k miles on it.
By the mid 90s the Chevette’s main advantage was parts availability. Yugo stuff dried up fast after Bricklin’s bankruptcy and the war starting but you could almost get GM parts at a grocery store.
I drove the Chevette for about 20k miles, and they were the tough miles that only a 16-year-old can demand. At that time, the only non-maintenance repair I had to make was a $35 alternator bracket, which took about 30 minutes to replace. It also started every single time in temps as low as -20º.
When I moved away to college, I sold it to two Italian guys on a gap year who spent nine months driving a circuit around the entire United States. Before they flew home, they stopped at my parents to offer them the opportunity to buy the car back and let them know that other than needing some minor brake work, it hadn’t missed a beat.
The Chevette was an example of a good, cheap car. Slow, and no amenities, but old, robust, and reliable tech that was cheap and easy to repair. Parts availability was a huge downside for the Yugo, to be sure, but it also had terrible quality and questionable, at best, engineering. The Yugo was bad on every level.
I thought Vettes were good…oh, that Vette…
I had to check my calendar to make sure it wasn’t April 1. I admit, I do like the lineup from Dacia, and I like Skoda a lot, but they’re almost premium now it seems. Maybe this has possibilities. Regardless of brand, us 80s kids are ready for something retro, even if it’s a car most people would prefer to forget.
It’s Monday, I’m coming off a 5 day long fever, there’s no editor/other staff commentary to tell me what to think, and I cannot for the life of me tell if this is a joke or not, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. This site is truly the best.
Provided it isn’t a face-swapped Chinese car, I’m interested. But that’s my worry with a lot of old brands these days.
Holy shit the technique in those sketches is bad.
Also hi Jens!
Feeling sassy today Adrian? Good to have you back in here.
It’s funny how you said “today.”
It’s like they don’t know me.
Whats the “Bad technique” These days I very RARELY see concept car sketches that doesn’t look like something a high school kid drew so the bar is already low.
The images are too dark and don’t pop from the background. The highlights and shadows are too soft and their use is too inconsistent, and some are in the wrong place. They look smudged and dirty and nowhere near professional standard.
The sketch that focuses a bit too much on the front wheel and tire is so far off it looks like the suspension is broken maybe. Very odd.
The defective suspension may be part of the official design, along with myriad other defects, if the new Yugo is to follow the old Yugo faithfully.
And don’t forget… the wheels are also too big and the tires don’t have enough sidewall!
Well, it’s a Serbian work, Adrian.
I just found your comment.
I’d argue this article isn’t even worth reporting because of the sketches.
I’m a CCS student, I’ve seen better from first semester freshman students.
These are beyond poor. The quality of the sketches makes me question if the car is even real.
Transportation Design?
Yes.
Don’t hesitate to reach out if you need any advice or I can help.
Hey, thanks. That means a lot, and I may indeed take you up on that. Love your writing.