Wind the clock back to the early 1980s and drivers of a certain vintage will recall a car entering the UK market with big ambitions and a bargain price tag of just £3,000.
While it undercut rivals of the era like the Austin Metro and Ford Fiesta during a pivotal period when Britain was in the depths of recession, it still managed to spectacularly fail – and hasn’t generated much of a nostalgic collector fanbase since.
Flimsy, poorly made, unreliable and noticeably dated compared to the opposition, its laughable affordability was arguably its only redeeming factor.
While thousands per year were initially snapped up, DVLA records show just seven remain on the road today, which is testament to its infamously terrible build quality.
But the name is set to make a dramatic return.
The project, spearheaded by a Serbian university professor, has been revealed this month as the first step in his plan to bring it back to the market in 2027…
Do you remember this infamous 1980s cheap motor? It is widely reconginised as one of the worst cars ever sold in Britain. But in the next two years, its name is being reborn…
The car in question is the Zastava Yugo – widely considered one of the biggest automotive travesties ever sold in Britain.
There’s even a book dedicated to it called: The Yugo: The Rise and Fall of the Worst Car in History.
The Yugoslavian brand – hence the name – introduced the Yugo 45 to the UK market in 1981, as a rebodied Fiat 127 with a simple box shape penned by famed styling house ItalDesign.
It borrowed the Italian manufacturer’s engine line-up too, selling with a choice of three petrol options of varying capacity, from 903cc to 1,301cc, carried over from Fiat’s 128. It even sold a ‘convertible’ variant with a power roof.
And it was seriously cheap.
The Eastern Bloc product cost as little as £2,795 by the time imports ceased in 1991 when the Yugoslav Wars broke out, making it by far the least expensive new car sold in Britain.
And it even made it across the Atlantic to the US, where it too bombed in terms of sales despite being the cheapest thing on American soil with four wheels.
The Yugoslavian brand – hence the name – introduced the Yugo 45 to the UK market in 1981 as a rebodied Fiat 127 with a simple box shape penned by famed styling house ItalDesign
The Yugo was available with a choice of three petrol options of varying capacity from 903cc to 1,301cc. It even sold as a ‘convertible’ variant (pictured) with a power roof
At the height of popularity in its early days, Zastava sold around 3,000 units per year in the UK.
Some 794,428 Yugos were produced in total, though only a fraction of these were sold in Britain.
By 2018, official registrations data showed just 19 still on the road. Half a decade later, UK numbers dwindled to just nine – and today there are only seven remaining.
In 1997, one example came to a grizzly end when cavalry officer Hew Kennedy and his friend Richard Barr built a replica 13th century catapult – known as a trebuchet – and, to showcase its slinging capacity, attached a red Yugo.
The pair had spent £12,000 building the catapult at Acton Round, near Bridgnorth, Shopshire, to settle an argument about whether a weapon could be produced for laying siege to castles.
It effectively launched the Zastava through the air, obliterating it when it eventually hit the ground – as you can see in the footage below (skip forward to 2 minutes to see the Yugo being flung tens of metres into the sky).
The Eastern Bloc product cost as little as £2,795 by the time imports ceased in 1991 when the Yugoslav Wars broke out, making it by far the least expensive new car sold in Britain at the time
The Zastava car factory in the central Serbian town of Kragujevac, some 75 miles from the capital Belgrade, was heavily damaged during air strikes in 1999
Incredibly, Zastava’s Koral (the name given for the domestic market) stayed in production in its Serbian home market until 2008 before the final model rolled off the assembly line on 21 November that year.
A decade later, Group Zastava Vehicles and its subsidiaries entered a bankruptcy procedure.
But the name Yugo is now set to embark on a dramatic return…
The Yugo name is set to return under the stewardship of Dr Alekasandar Bjelić (pictured), a university professor with links to the automotive industry in Germany
Bjelić debuted a 1:5-scale vision of the reborn Yugo at the Car Design Event 2025 in Munich, hosted between 6-8 May
Alongside Serbian designer Darko Marčeta, the pair showcased how the eighties-inspired supermini might look – and its a significant departure from the Yugo Britons will know…
Yugo reborn
Debuted earlier this month at the Car Design Event 2025, in Munich, Yugo Automobile unveiled its 1:5-scale vision for what the Yugo could look like some 35 years after it vanished from Britain’s showrooms.
The company – and owner of the Yugo naming rights – is Dr Alekasandar Bjelić, a university professor with links to the automotive industry in Germany and an ambitious relaunch vision.
Alongside Serbian designer Darko Marčeta, the pair showcased how the eighties-inspired supermini might look.
The styling compact car features slim LED lights front and rear, large alloy wheels and squared haunches more befitting of a period hot hatch rather than the basic, utilitarian runaround sharing the same name.
Bjelić says it will initially be sold as an ‘affordable’ two-door model, though there is potential for ‘different body versions’ to follow
To keep costs down, it aims to debut with a petrol engine and choice of manual or automatic gearboxes. However, Yugo Automobile also says ‘electrified versions are possible’
A fully working prototype has been promised for the Belgrade Expo in 2027
Bjelić says it will initially be sold as an ‘affordable’ two-door model, though there is potential for ‘different body versions’ to follow.
To keep costs down, it will – if all goes to plan – debut with a petrol engine and choice of manual or automatic gearboxes.
However, Yugo Automobile also says ‘electrified versions are possible’.
Promising a ‘fun-to-drive car’ that ‘meets all relevant safety standards,’ Yugo Automobiles hints that it will use a shared platform borrowed from a ‘cooperation partner’.
A fully working prototype has been promised for the Belgrade Expo in 2027.
Given the original Yugo is widely considered one of the worst cars ever to be sold in Britain, surely the only way is up for Bjelić’s project.
