Ah, the Yugo. The butt of many a stand-up comedian’s jokes. Thousands were sold because they were cheap ($3995 at a time when cars were just crossing over the $10K mark). They fell apart on test drives, there were blown off the road by Chevettes, they just sucked in general.
I haven’t seen one on the road in at 12 years. Has anybody seen any lately? RUNNING? Not too long ago, artists took some dead ones and made them into various art projects.
As for other cars that suck, I will, on rare occasion, see a Pacer, Gremlin, Pinto, Chevette, and the odd Vega around town.
There was a woman who worked at my company about 2 years ago who was driving a Yugo to work each day. Even so it was the first one I had seen in years. She doesn’t work there any more.
In Tucson, about 3 months ago, parked near where I usually park at my place of employment. Quite rusted, missing the rear window. “FOR SALE $75” in faded white shoe polish on one remaining window; closer inspection showed it said “$750” at one time.
Next day it wasn’t there; I assumed it was driven away.
It was a line. I forget the comedian, but he followed it up with “So I broke into the car and stole the Club. Those things are worth something!”
And I have to admit to having owned a Yugo once. I got it for about $100, drove it for a couple of years, gave it to my sister when she desperately needed a car, who then sold it for $100 after a year or so, when she no longer needed it. It had about 100,000 miles on it when she got rid of it. For all I know, it could still be running.
Back in the '90s a co-worker had a Yugo. Sometimes he would drive when some of us went out to lunch. Yes! I’ve actually ridden in a Yugo! The co-worker said that is wasn’t much of a car, but it was cheap. I never heard him say anything about mechanical problems. Of course he eventually replaced it with something better.
A friend in grad school had a Yugo. Darn thing held up for a couple of years, but if you ever need spare parts, you’re SOL. He had a minor accident and had to get rid of it because it would have cost more to buy parts to repair it than the car was worth.