The Yugo

 

"The Yugo: The Rise and Fall of the Worst Car in History chronicles the introduction of a Communist-made subcompact into the middle of Ronald Reagan's America and how a little car had a big impact on the American psyche. We picked up a copy, assuming it would be a light read for a long train ride. Instead we found a fascinating and rigorously researched history that was more fun than a night’s worth of Yugo jokes."—Keith Bary, Wired

 

"Given that socialist car jokes have survived better than the cars themselves, it can be hard to recall the West's brief, fiery affairs—more of necessity, perhaps, than love—with those cars in countries like Britain and the United States. For a brief time in the 1980s, for example, British dealers of the Soviet Union's Lada ranked among the industry's best-performing. And as historian Jason Vuic chronicles in his captivating, unexpected new book, The Yugo: The Rise and Fall of the Worst Car in History, for a fleeting moment amid the clichéd go-go excesses of the 1980s, the $3,995 Yugo—loosely based on a Fiat and produced by a one-time arms manufacturer called Zastava—captured the wallets, if not exactly the hearts, of Americans and introduced some oddball charm and entrepreneurial zest into the staid confines of the U.S. auto market . . . Vuic's history is a fascinating read, and an instructive one for the present moment."—Tom Vanderbilt, Slate

"Creating the Yugo required dozens of corporations, thousands of Yugoslavians, international diplomacy, a cold war, marketing genius, consumer idiocy, and major screwups from not just one political ideology but all of them. Any knucklehead with a lawn mower engine and a monkey wrench can build a bad car. It took communism, socialism, and capitalism to build a Yugo. And Jason Vuic has the story."—P. J. O'Rourke

"Was the Yugo the worst car in history? No, although it wasn't far behind such automotive insults as the Trabant. Is this the most enjoyable car book of the year? Yes! Few car books can match Jason Vuic's supporting cast of earnest automotive executives, politicians, and out-and-out hucksters. Chapter after chapter is filled with such outrageous actions in the name of selling cars that you have to keep repeating this mantra: 'It's not libel if it's true.'"—James B. Treece, Industry Editor, Automotive News

"A cross-cultural tale of the little car that couldn't. Thoroughly researched, tellingly told—and hilarious!"—Phil Patton, author of Bug: The Strange Mutations of the World's Most Famous Automobile

"Testimony to the dishonesty, gullibilitysuccess, greed, cynicism, stupidity, and incompetence of virtually everyone involved in attempting to palm off a ramshackle Balkan-made leftover on the hapless American car buyer, who turned out not to be so hapless after all. The saga of the Yugo proves that failure may not be as instructive as sucess, but it's lots more entertaining."—Bruce McCall