Dave@Moon Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 Yes, it's that magic year (2011) when the first model year Hyundai and Yugo models officially imported to the U.S. reach that 25 year-old milestone and become bona fide members of the antique car community. It's also the last to last year that any new products from an American independent manufacturer will reach that milestone (1987 AMCs).The recent changes in the automotive industry are starting to rain down on us in an even more rapid fashion than before. It's something to think about.I hope the aficionados of these marques are at least as welcome as past new inductees have been. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Mellor NJ Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 I didn't think any Yugo lasted more than 30 days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barry Wolk Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 Only took me two. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Dave Boyer Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 Try and find a Hyundai Pony....I don't think you guys got them in the US. (@1984)Every time it rained, the intersections were clogged with them, stalled out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wowabunga Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 Q: How do you double the value of your Yugo ????A: Fill the gas tank. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Schramm Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 Remember when they came out.... Buy a Chevrolet and get a Yugo for free. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shop Rat Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 Know what they call a four passenger Yugo?A WeGo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest my3buicks Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 You guys are sure going to make the new AACA members that just joined that are proud of the Yugo's feel really great. NICE!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shop Rat Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 You guys are sure going to make the new AACA members that just joined that are proud of the Yugo's feel really great. NICE!!We're just having some innocent fun. I am sure they know that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barry Wolk Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 I was serious. I take very big steps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest my3buicks Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 I see a Hugo convertible sitting along side of a house when I go to my camp in Ohio - Now if you wanted to collect a Yugo, that would probably be a good one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DAVE A Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 Keith; I don't think you have to worry too much about us small car people, we usually have a pretty good sense of humor and have heard most of it before. Besides with our small underpowered cars you know we aren't compensating for inadequacies in other areas!!! Many of the jokes going around have been recycled a number of times. In their day 60-70 years ago, Crosleys were the butt of numerous jokes. "You don't have to park a Crosley, you just keep in on your watch chain." " You don't buy a Crosley under the table, but you could park it there." and finally "If you have a Crosley and a chauffeur, where does the chauffeur sit?...at home probably" and lots of others. At a show when someone takes mocking my car a little beyond good humor, I usually challenge him to a race...but at my rules. The race is 45 miles long and we get one gallon of gas...and I'll offer to give him a head start. By the time the surrounding laughter stops he has usually gotten the point and we get back to good humor. My only question is will I have to compete with them in the new small car class 04-B?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keiser31 Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 Is it true that Yugos came standard with a rear defroster to keep your hands warm while pushing it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
old car fan Posted January 24, 2011 Share Posted January 24, 2011 Keiser,i think you speak about both,and ,i have not seen one for years ,to collect,if i cared to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
W_Higgins Posted January 24, 2011 Share Posted January 24, 2011 Who said, "Hyundai -- as much fun to drive as they are to push."? Hint: he died on this day six years ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Dr. Strangelove Posted January 24, 2011 Share Posted January 24, 2011 Yugo: On a quiet night, you could hear them rust.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Mellor NJ Posted January 24, 2011 Share Posted January 24, 2011 Remember when they came out.... Buy a Chevrolet and get a Yugo for free.I think when they came out they were sold by Oldsmobile dealers. I worked on a new building being built for Crisconi Olds in 1985 on Passyunk Avenue in Philadelphia In front of the main building they were putting up a building for the soon to be introduced Yugo. Crisconi moved from South Broad street which was Auto Dealer Row for many years in Philly to the "New Auto Dealer Row" which was built at the end of junkyard row. They brought some parts over and I saw some NOS Bricklin fenders but they wouldn't sell them to me. Remember the Yugo was the latest effort to sell a foreign made car through Olds Dealers by Malcolm Bricklin, the first,of course was the 74-75 Bricklin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wowabunga Posted January 24, 2011 Share Posted January 24, 2011 Is it true that Yugos came standard with a rear defroster to keep your hands warm while pushing it?Oh my.... that's the best laugh I'd had all month. It's been a long haul month. Below one of my favorite quotes of all time:"Laughter is to life.... What Shock Absorbers are to Cars"As a Geo Metro owner ( I think I have half a dozen of them ) I'm looking forward to the day that my 1991 Geo XFi enters the show field. It will sport the factory window sticker showing the 58mpg epa rating. When the gas prices hit $4 a gallon the value of Geo Metros double as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave@Moon Posted January 24, 2011 Author Share Posted January 24, 2011 Remember the Yugo was the latest effort to sell a foreign made car through Olds Dealers by Malcolm Bricklin, the first,of course was the 74-75 Bricklin.Actually the Yugo was Malcolm Bricklin's last successful attempt to introduce an imported marque to the American market. Prior to the Yugo he made his bones by forming Subaru of America in the 1960s. Also the Bricklin was a Canadian-built vehicle using largely U.S. manufacturer components, so it was "foreign" only to an extent.His latest attempt in 2002 was to try and form a company to import Chery automobiles from China. That deal fell apart in 2006. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john2dameron Posted January 24, 2011 Share Posted January 24, 2011 I always thought the name "Yugo" was a mistake. More often than not it should have been Nogo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stock_steve Posted January 24, 2011 Share Posted January 24, 2011 ...As a Geo Metro owner ( I think I have half a dozen of them ) I'm looking forward to the day that my 1991 Geo XFi enters the show field. It will sport the factory window sticker showing the 58mpg epa rating. When the gas prices hit $4 a gallon the value of Geo Metros double as well.We met a fellow Pinto owner (yet another small car with Rodney Dangerfield syndrome!) at Hershey this past fall, when we were showing ours in HPOF, who, in addition to his Pinto and two VW Things, also owns a superb original Geo Metro Convertible! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Restorer32 Posted January 24, 2011 Share Posted January 24, 2011 Someone is proud to own a Yugo? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keiser31 Posted January 24, 2011 Share Posted January 24, 2011 Is the Yugo Club where Yugo owners sit around in a circle and console each other? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R W Burgess Posted January 24, 2011 Share Posted January 24, 2011 Come on guys, it was certainly better than a lawnmower? I'm assuming you all saw the video of the fellow under the influence locked up for riding his mower to the store??Wayne Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Schramm Posted January 24, 2011 Share Posted January 24, 2011 I will keep my '72 vintage Cub Cadet tractor made by International Harvester. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R W Burgess Posted January 24, 2011 Share Posted January 24, 2011 I think ours is around a 66-67 model Larry. It does not have the trick fenders on the back, but it does have a manual lift hitch! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Jim_Edwards Posted January 24, 2011 Share Posted January 24, 2011 You guys better hang on to those "real" Cub Cadets. IH doesn't make them anymore. All the new ones are made by MTD and/or Yanmar. Not that the latter necessarily makes them bad, they're just not the same.Jim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Schramm Posted January 24, 2011 Share Posted January 24, 2011 Mine is manual lift also. My wife jokes that most winters that I put the snow blower on we get less than average snow and so far this year is keeping up with her predictions..... but as for the cold that is another story. It was about 5deg F here in Detroit metro area today and 3 deg yesterday AM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Jim_Edwards Posted January 24, 2011 Share Posted January 24, 2011 We met a fellow Pinto owner (yet another small car with Rodney Dangerfield syndrome!) at Hershey this past fall, when we were showing ours in HPOF, who, in addition to his Pinto and two VW Things, also owns a superb original Geo Metro Convertible!Aren't Geo's nothing other than a re-branded Suzuki?Jim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave@Moon Posted January 24, 2011 Author Share Posted January 24, 2011 Aren't Geo's nothing other than a re-branded Suzuki?JimThe Geo Metro was brand engineered Suzuki Swift/Cultus, albeit one that was unavilable in the same mechanical configuration at U.S. Suzuki dealers. The Geo Tracker was also a Suzuki product based on their Sidekick model. The Geo Prizm was a rebodied version of the Toyota Corolla. The Geo Spectrum and Storm were cloned Isuzu models (I-Mark and Impulse respectively). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poci1957 Posted January 24, 2011 Share Posted January 24, 2011 Last year they released a book about the story of the Yugo in America, an interesting story well told. If interested google it at amazon.com Todd C Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harold Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 Yugos were tough little cars. There was a man in the next town from here who raced them and did very well. He even got a write-up in the Wall Street Journal about 10 years ago. I drove one once and it really wasn't that bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest billybird Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 I thought all the Yugo's rusted out in the showroom. Seriously; there is a guy that lives in my neighborhood who drives one everyday. I've been thinking about stopping and asking him how that one survived. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
junkyardjeff Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 Is there enough demand for the aftermarket parts suppliers to keep producing parts for the Yugos. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Moskowitz Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 I gotta be nuts. Pickers and Pawn Stars are on and I just got home from a very long day at work and I am posting here!I was a Yugo dealer. I bought the franchise hoping that a low cost car with a warranty would help people buy something that was cheaper and better than a used car. Some of the first cars in this country were not up to snuff that is for sure. They had the wrong spark plugs and some minor but aggravating quality problems for a car that was ancient technology and had been produced for years. After awhile the car seemed to hold up well.Leno and Letterman skewered the car and it became the butt of jokes. I personally believed it went a long way towards killing the company. This was a huge gamble to begin with and the negative publicty was the final blow.The new models we were supposed to get never arrived and despite selling a whole bunch of these cars it was not one of my happier times in the business.Interestingly, I took some flack from some of the locals about selling a "Communist" car. Northwest Indiana contained a rather large but diverse Slavic community and I got praised in one corner and burned in another.Hey, I was a DeLorean dealer too so I had no shortage of failed ventures...yes, I had the Zimmer mortorhome deal for awhile as well! Life was sure colorful back then but I had a lot of families that relied on our store to provide them a living so I took some chances. OK, now have at me...I think I have just opened myself up for a few barbs!:rolleyes::cool::eek: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Silverghost Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 (edited) Was the YUGO factory not bombed to the ground by the US Air Force & NATO by accident ? Edited January 25, 2011 by Silverghost (see edit history) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest BLKSVT Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 LOL...this is awesome, I always thought that the Yugo was the undercover replacement for the Vega. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Mellor NJ Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 Is the Yugo Club where Yugo owners sit around in a circle and console each other?No, the Yugo club is a tire iron. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edselsouth1 Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 Hello all. As for the Yugo jokes, there's a ton of them around. Even some sites on the 'net with pages of them. I've probably owned upward of 40 Yugos over the years. Had 23 of them at one time. I only have 3 now, a 1986 with 60K , a 1987 GVX with over 300K, and a 1991 GV+ with only 44K. All run and drive well, and as the price of gas rises, I'm sure I'll drive them more often. As with any vehicle, the life expectancy is only as good as the maintenance and care you give to that vehicle. I not only own Yugos, but a couple of Reattas, a 1976 Nova 4 dr., a 1959 Edsel, a 1987 Fiero GT, a 1964 Galaxie 500XL 4 dr. hardtop, and a couple of other insignificant vehicles. Got to love the old car hobby!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shop Rat Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 I gotta be nuts. Pickers and Pawn Stars are on and I just got home from a very long day at work and I am posting here!I was a Yugo dealer. I bought the franchise hoping that a low cost car with a warranty would help people buy something that was cheaper and better than a used car. Some of the first cars in this country were not up to snuff that is for sure. They had the wrong spark plugs and some minor but aggravating quality problems for a car that was ancient technology and had been produced for years. After awhile the car seemed to hold up well.Leno and Letterman skewered the car and it became the butt of jokes. I personally believed it went a long way towards killing the company. This was a huge gamble to begin with and the negative publicty was the final blow.The new models we were supposed to get never arrived and despite selling a whole bunch of these cars it was not one of my happier times in the business.Interestingly, I took some flack from some of the locals about selling a "Communist" car. Northwest Indiana contained a rather large but diverse Slavic community and I got praised in one corner and burned in another.Hey, I was a DeLorean dealer too so I had no shortage of failed ventures...yes, I had the Zimmer mortorhome deal for awhile as well! Life was sure colorful back then but I had a lot of families that relied on our store to provide them a living so I took some chances. OK, now have at me...I think I have just opened myself up for a few barbs!:rolleyes::cool::eek:Your losses were our gain. Thanks for all you do Steve. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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