Our classic car ad of the week features one of the worlds worst cars, the Yugo. Produced since 1981 in Serbia by Zastava the car was imported into the US in 1985 and sold as the cheapest new car available. Based on the Fiat 128, a car that dates back to 1969, the Zastava was popular in eastern Europe where the choice of other cars on offer made the Zastava look like a good buy and economical motoring. By the time the car got to the US under the Yugo name, the unrefined and sluggish box was bought up by cheapskates who would of been better off finding a decent secondhand car. Not only did the car suffer from poor build quality and performance, the market of customer the car was aimed at were often too tight to service them properly making the cars mechanical woos worse. Sales in the US stopped around 1992 when UN sanctions against the former Yugoslavia stopped exports. NATO later bombed the factory that has since been rebuilt to churn out a face-lifted version of the car that is known today as the Zastava Koral.
Official Website for the current version of the car
The Zoe Zipper was a three wheeled car introduced to the United States in 1983, produced by Misuoka Motors of Japan (a company well known for creating odd cars) it featured only one seat, a 50cc Honda motorbike engine and rather strange styling. The car surprisingly was not a hit with most people preferring two or more seats in their cars and more conventional design. It has been said that fewer of 50 of the cars were built with a sedan, a convertible and a type of mini truck all being available. Today the Zoe company is no more but Misuoka is still around in Japan creating cars based on small Nissan’s and Daihatsu’s with old world Jaguar front and rear end styling.
The Zap Xebra is an electric 3 wheeled car produced in China and sold in the United States the Xebra has a 40klm range with a top speed of around 60klm an hour. Technically classed as a motorcycle the car features such luxuries as 4 seats with seatbelts and a radio/cassette and a heater. The Xebra is about the cheapest electric cars you could own with a price tag of around $11k US it could be tempting to some but also remember 40klm is not that far and walking or riding a bike is just as environmentally friendly with far less mechanical problems. Many owners who have ponied up cash for the Xebra have noted it has poor build quality with a tendency to leak water into the electrics, probably not a good thing in an electric car. Zap claim to have rectified the leaking issue but you really have to be keen to go green with a car that looks like this one.
This week we are looking at electric cars and the most well known electric car was the GM EV1. The EV1 was the first electric car built by General Motors, it was made to address the requirement of Californian law at the time for automakers to start making zero emission cars. 800 were made from 1996, as the whole program was so expensive for GM all the cars were leased to customers instead of being sold. This proved handy for GM later on in 2003 when they recalled all the cars and crushed them thereby wiping out the expensive program. Many customers who leased the EV1 begged to purchase their cars but GM didn’t want to know about them claiming it would be too costly to keep the program going. The car also became the subject of the Doco “Who killed the electric car?” Many people believe there was a conspiracy by the fuel companies to get rid of the EV1 but in reality the car wasn’t that great, at the time it may of be seen as a car ahead of its time but looking at the advances of today’s Chevy Volt concept it perhaps was the right idea at the wrong time. Today the few remaining cars that weren’t crushed were donated and used in either museums or university labs, there are still a few used in GMs own test fleet as well.
One of our favorite car ads from the 80s was the Tron inspired marketing campaign for the Holden Camira. The Camira was Australia’s version of GM’s J car program and when first released was a huge success, it even won car of the year. Holden’s marketing line for the Camira was “Supercar” and the early purchasers of the Camira soon found out the only thing that the Camira had in common with a real supercar was poor reliability. The issues that dogged the first model (the JB) affected sales on the whole series, so much so that the New Zealanders refused to take the follow up JD model and imported the Japanese version instead. Some people claim the later models like the JD or JE were fantastic but you still have trouble even giving them away.
The Zastava 101 is a car built by Serbian car maker Zastava Automobili sometimes better known as Yugo. The 101 was based on the Fiat 128 that first hit the roads in 1969 with the Zastava version going into production in 1971 and also spinning off a hatchback variety not found on its Fiat cousin. While many people pointed out the more popular Fiat 128 was a bit long in the tooth when it was finally retired in 1985 the Zastava 101 is still produced today as the Skala 5 door hatch with a 55-horsepower, 1.1-liter engine on its one trim level. The Skala is available for around 4000 euro’s and is popular in its home country of Serbia and a few other eastern European countries. These cars were once exported across Europe and along with its bigger brother the 45 but the Balkan war put trade sanctions on the company with NATO later blowing up part of their factory.
Official Site (not in English but good pics of it anyhow)
The AMC Gremlin has to go down in history as one of the worst ideas in automotive marketing history, named after creatures that cause mechanical problems it was released on April fools day 1970. AMC had very little money to invest at the time so when they need a car in the subcompact market they cut the rear off their compact Hornet model and created this horrid looking box. It could come with either a 2l 4 cyl or a 3.3, 3.8 or a 4.2 6 cyl and a 5 lt V8 engine and this was in a market that was compeating against the VW Beetle, despite all that seems wrong on the surface the car sold well and was one of AMC’s largest production runs with just over 670,000 cars produced over 9 years. The car even has developed a cult following partly thanks to its over the top 1970s looks and the fact that the larger engine cars are resonable performers if not a bit thursty. But many think this along with a few of AMC’s other products are dogs and is probably the car that marked the start of AMC’s downfall.
When designers come up with new car designs you would think they would go out to market research just to check that the public like it and then do a few tweaks. Even if they stuff up you would think management would say..hey no one is going to like that and send them back to the drafting table- well what when on here? The AMC Pacer would have to be the ugliest car of all time, there isn’t a bit you could like. There have been several polls for the ugliest car over the year but the Pacer comes up tops most times, The AMC Gremlin (its sister) always ranks high, as does the Ford Pinto, The Chevy Aztek and the poor old Edsel from Ford. The Pacer was a two door compact produced between 1975 and 1980 it more resembled a jellybean on wheels than a car. You might remember the “Mirthmobile” in the Hit 90’s movie Wayne’s World and they had a stretched and convertible on in the sequel. The car also came in a station wagon form and with the lovely wood panelling also was hideous. The only thing I can’t understand with the whole Pacer story is AMC made 280000 of them, who would have bought one?
If you have a Pacer and think we are being a bit unfair or have another ugly car to note drop us a line!
