While some owners boasted on Web sites that their Yugos had chalked up tens of thousands of miles, many more simply abandoned their cars when they stopped running and couldn't be repaired.
One Web site depicts junked Yugos that a Manhattan art professor's students remodeled into everything from a Yugo toaster and Yugo bath with running shower to a Yugo Porto-potty.
Now, after "vegetating" in Colorado a few years, Bricklin is back with a line of new Yugos, touting big plans and even bigger promises. "The car business is in my blood," he says.
Bricklin's company, Zastava Motor Works, will be based in Mahwah, New Jersey. The new Yugos or ZMWs -- initials that sound like another car -- will sell for US$5,000 to US$10,000, again making them the cheapest new cars on the block.
Bricklin says Zastava will be able to invest in quality car production since the war left the once overmanned factory with fewer workers to pay. Presumably, the flow of Peugeot engines will grow, and US dealers will be found to push the cars.
``He does have a magic touch where rounding up dealers is concerned,'' said David Davis, editorial director of Primedia Inc's Motor Trend magazine.
"The Koreans have a huge advantage, but you can't under-estimate him." In the 1980s, the Yugo collided with tough competition from South Korea's Hyundai Motor Co, which also imported cheap, low-quality cars. Now Hyundai is about to sell pricier models from a new factory in Alabama, leaving the bargain basement wide open for Bricklin.
Hey, wonder if the new Yugo's manual is like the old one.
That had a bus schedule.
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