No pictures because it was gone before what I was looking at fully registered: a late-model Bronco four-door with no roof over the first row of seats (i.e.: chauffeur-style).
The front hard top panels can be removed without any tools. They are latched from the inside.
Ah, that makes sense. Google didn’t help me any, for some reason.
When I first got mine, I took the panel over my head off and went 4-wheeling with some friends. I never made that dusty mistake again.
Maybe not for me, but for someone out there, the most interesting car is parked in my driveway. This isn’t the first note or door knock we’ve received from someone who wants to buy it. The guy who sold me those new tires wanted to buy it.
It’s a 2000 Chevrolet Suburban LT, 205k miles, with 4WD and the 5.3 V8. That’s the first or second year (depending on who I believe) of the GMT800 platform. Below are some closeups showing the patina (aka, GM can’t formulate a paint that sticks to plastic).
It used to be worth maybe $2-5k, but that was 8 years ago. Blue book is still around $5k private party. When I look at completed auctions on Bring a Trailer, they’re all $10k+. A clean 2500 with the 8.1 could easily go for $25k+, depending on mileage, but the 1500 5.3s are still 5 figures.
Even if I could sell it for $10k, what would I replace it with?
Spotted this at a body shop I drive past a lot. It looks like a 1959 or 1960 Ford F-100 Custom pickup. Nice wheels.
When I had my old VW bug (1974) out in the driveway, I had three different people knock on my door and offer to buy it. And a 4th person stopped to offer to buy it the one day it broke down on the way into work. The generator died, and someone pulled in behind me while I was trying to figure out what happened to it.
My current VW bug (1968) is in the garage, so I don’t get people knocking on my door any more.
My MG TD is in the driveway, but it’s under a tarp. No one has ever come knocking for it.
I’d swear I saw Yugo on this car, but Google images says it’s a 1981 Toyota Starlet KP61. It also said it’s a VW, but I think it was misreading EFI as GTI.
ETA, a license plate search said it’s a 1981 Yugo.
I think that’s the first Yugo I’ve seen in the wild.
I’ve not seen a Yugo since the early nineties. I’d forgotten how ugly the were.
And now I have The Left Wing Fascists in my head.
A friend of mine had one in the mid 1980s. I rode in it a few times. We lived in WV and that little 3 banger engine was horribly underpowered for WV hills. It felt very cheaply made, but it was a new car at a used car price back then. The dealer had put a really good radio in it, which seemed to be a selling point for it. IMHO, the radio was the only good thing it had going for it.
He only had it for a few years.
There were a bunch of them around for a short while. He and his wife would wave at other Yugo drivers when they passed by. By the mid 90s you didn’t see them around much any more, at least not in our area.
This is a wikipedia picture, but his looked identical to this (same color, etc).
A friend of mine, back in the 90’s had an 80something Dodge Omni. I presume the Yugo is meant to be another version of the Dodge Omni/Plymouth Horizon. At least it looks like it.
Seems like the dealer knew what they were doing.
Someone at my college (on staff, I think, based on the parking spot) had an old AMC Eagle station wagon. That thing was hideous.
And even more unrelated, I just noticed that the car they occasionally play with on The Water Jet Channel is a Pinto.
Edit: I don’t know why this just popped into my head. But they used to make Excaliburs in Milwaukee. You’d seem them out on the road more often than you’d have expected.
Q: Why do Yugos come with a rear defroster standard?
A: To keep your hands warm when pushing.
There was a Subaru Domingo there this weekend. At first I thought it was some new EV given how tiny it was & the lack of anything except just about sheet metal between the front footwells & the outside, & the ‘Domingo’ badge on the front. Walking around behind it to see a name I realized it was a) a Subie & b) old - it had classic plates. Looking further, I realized it was RHD; ahhh, a 25+ import of something I’ve never heard of before as the Spidey senses really started tingling. Ended up finding out who it belonged to on Sun evening & was supposed to get a ride in it/take it for a ride on Mon morning before everyone left; but alas, I didn’t hear back from them in time.
You’ve got to love those old Soviet Block built cars.
The VW Golf / Rabbit came out before either of those. IMO the Yugo, Omni / Horizon, and most of the other small hatchbacks of the era were all trying to imitate the Golf.
IIRC, while Yugoslavia had a Communist style government, they refused to just go along with what the USSR wanted, which is why the US supported them at the time. And one of the ways we sported them was allowing the importation of the Yugo.
Q: How do you double the value of a Yugo?
A: Fill the gas tank.
Q: How do you get a Yugo to go 60mph?
A: Push it off a cliff.
In all seriousness, I would love to own a Yugo. Just to brag that I have one. ::swoon:: I love Aging Wheels’ videos on his Yugo.
I’ve also recommended this book before. It’s a great history on the Yugo, and why it became such a joke soon after it went on sale in the U.S.
Also how to turn Yugo into Yugone.
I forgot about the Rabbit. My aunt had one that would’ve been from the 70s or 80s. I was too young to drive at that point, but she let me shift gears. When I got my temps, she taught me how to drive stick in her next car, a Nissan with a clutch that had very little play between in and out.
It’s the classic two box design of that era.
I had a VW Scirocco. Sort of a sports car version of the Rabbit.
A buddy and I hi-powed the engine. Damn, that was a fun car to drive. I ended up giving it to an ex-girlfriend that really needed wheels. I had bought a Nissan 240SX that was also very fun to drive, lots of zip, very tight. A friend that had a Miata wanted to race me. I demurred, as I like my drivers license.