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I bought one of the first Samurais after they were upgraded with the 4-cyl engine. It was my wife's winter car, and both of my kids drove it their last two years of high school. It was a great little car.
I offered to buy my son a Yugo for his graduation, but he declined. Instead he got a Chevy Turbo Sprint. Quick little car, but he didn't keep it too long.
A woman crossing the The Mackinac Bridge in Michigan with a Yugo lost control and fell to her death into lake Michigan.
To be fair, the loss of control had less to do with the Yugo than with the extratropical remnants of Hurricane Hugo blowing through Michigan that day.
I test drove a Yugo. It was the end of 1988 or the beginning of 1989.
The dealer did the first have of the drive. I could not help but notice that the turn signal shaft was bending drastically as the dealer signaled for a turn, the fact that the roof lining looked as though it was made from overlapping layers of glossy white duct tape, and that the engine noise was quite loud.
He pulled into a parking lot to switch drivers. I put my right hand on the arm grip to exit the car, heard a "snap", and realized the grip was now in my hand. Embarrassed about breaking part of the brand new car, the dealer looked at me and said: "Don't worry, we keep a bunch in the shop, takes 5 minutes to replace!"
I was watching the evening news when they did a news story on the arrival of the Yugo. The video showed the first car being rolled out the ship, guy gets in the car, and with TV cameras rolling, the car wouldn't start. Wish I could find that video. When I saw that, I saw it as a sign the car would be a failure.
If I'm not mistaken, it was the cheapest car you could buy in the U.S. in '88 -- $3995. The Turbo Sprint that I ended up buying for my son looked about the same but was twice the price.
all seriousness aside a fellow i work with bought a new one and drove it for many many years till he finally ran it in the ground ... he still has it ...
I had an older neighbor who bought one back in the 80s. I think he only had it for 3 or 4 years tops. He said the Yugo broke down a lot and he could not get parts for it. I believe he ended up totaling it in a bad wreck.
I never bought one. A guy I worked with did. It started falling apart immediately.
I think he bought a Youdontgo.
The only other car that came close was the infamous early Hyundai. No, it wasn't a joint venture with Microsoft, it's just that Hyundai thought it was a good idea to call it the "Excel".
Yugos were a mess from the start, just like the Excel. The two companies should have done a joint venture, and called their car "Yugoexcel". Tony Robbins could have been their pitchman.
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