Flash back to the early 1980s. The UK was in a recession, and a strange little car from Eastern Europe arrived with big dreams and a tiny price tag — just £3,000. It was called the Yugo, and it was cheaper than a Ford Fiesta or an Austin Metro. Sounds like a win, right?
Wrong.
The Yugo turned out to be one of the most infamous flops in automotive history. It was badly built, unreliable, and looked outdated even back then. Its only real selling point? It was laughably cheap.
At first, Brits bought thousands of them each year. But today? Just seven are still on the road, according to DVLA data — a brutal reminder of just how badly this car aged.
Despite all that, the Yugo name is gearing up for a shock return.
A Serbian professor is leading a project to bring the Yugo back by 2027. His name’s Dr Aleksandar Bjelić, and he just unveiled a 1:5-scale model of the future Yugo at the 2025 Car Design Event in Munich. It’s a bold move to resurrect a brand often labelled the “worst car ever sold in Britain.” (There’s literally a book called The Yugo: The Rise and Fall of the Worst Car in History.)
Originally launched in the UK in 1981, the Yugo 45 was a reworked Fiat with boxy ItalDesign styling and engines lifted straight from Fiat’s parts bin. There was even a convertible version with a powered roof — not bad for a car that eventually cost just £2,795 before imports stopped in 1991 due to the Yugoslav wars.
It was also sold in the US — and bombed there too, despite being the cheapest four-wheeled vehicle you could buy. Within a year, it had become a late-night comedy punchline.
Things got darker in 1989 when a Yugo was blown off Michigan’s Mackinac Bridge by strong winds, tragically killing the driver. The incident only added to the car’s bizarre legacy.
By the late ‘90s, the Yugo was already a relic. In one particularly wild moment, a retired cavalry officer in the UK built a medieval trebuchet and used it to launch a Yugo through the air. (Yes, there’s video. And yes, it gets destroyed.)
Production in Serbia actually continued until 2008 under the name “Zastava Koral,” but by 2018, only 19 were still driving around the UK. Today, that number is just seven.
Now, the comeback.
The all-new Yugo, according to the concept revealed in Munich, will be a small, sporty-looking car with LED lights, big alloys, and chunky, retro-inspired styling. Dr Bjelić and Serbian designer Darko Marčeta are calling it an “affordable” two-door to start with — though more versions might follow.
If it gets off the ground, the new Yugo will run on petrol first, with both manual and automatic options, and potentially go electric later. It’ll be built on a shared platform with a partner brand (unnamed for now) and aims to be safe, fun to drive, and budget-friendly.
A working prototype is promised for the 2027 Belgrade Expo.
Considering the original Yugo became a running joke in car culture, this reboot has nowhere to go but up.
