The story of the Yugo, the worst car in the world

Plenty of cars have been described as the worst of all time, but the car most deserving of its reputation for disastrousness has been the unfortunate little Yugo GV.

There have been plenty of cars throughout the past 100 years or so that have been unlucky enough to have had the title of “the world’s worst car” bestowed upon them, some have been decidedly more comically misguided than others.

Take the 1899 Horsey Horseless as an example. Created by inventor Uriah Smith, the Horseless was a chuffing early automobile that featured a wooden horse head attached to the front, in order to make it more acceptable to folk used to horse-drawn carriages.

Others, like the DeLorean DMC-12 or Jaguar X-Type weren’t quite as mad in design, but failed to impress with their questionable build quality. Yet, of all the cars ever made, the most loathed, the most derided and the most reviled seems to have been the unfortunate little Yugo GV.

A supermini built for Eastern Europe during the latter stages of Soviet rule, the Yugo started life as a variant of the Fiat 127, manufactured by hand with permission from Fiat. By 1980, the Yugo was mass produced in Serbia and, like the Lada, became a common sight in Eastern Bloc countries.

Lada got its fair share of derision as well, but the Yugo had the distinct feeling of something assembled at gunpoint. The fact that “carpet” was listed as a standard feature said it all really, while the best thing about its rear-window defrosted, according to consensus, was that it could keep your hands warm while you pushed it.

This wasn’t the only joke that the lowly Yugo would serve as the butt of as its notoriety grew. What do you call a Yugo with a flat tyre? Totalled. What’s included in every Yugo owner’s manual? A bus schedule. What do you call a Yugo that breaks down after 100 miles? An overachiever.

Yugo, or rather you don’t. . .

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