Cars - Zastava vehicles

Home > Listing Index > Cars > Zastava vehicles

	Cars - Zastava vehicles

The Zastava Koral / Yugo 45 and family are vehicles produced by the Zastava corporation, both for local use in the production country of Serbia and for export around the world.

Model names covered

In the lifetime of the model range the car has gone under a variety of different names:

Yugo 45 / Zastava Yugo 45 (Yugoslavia / United Kingdom / Europe)
Yugo 55 (Yugoslavia / United Kingdom / Europe)
Yugo 60efi (spec. Denmark and Greece version / United Kingdom / Europe)
Yugo 65 / 65efi (spec. Germany version / United Kingdom / Europe)
Yugo GV (United States)
* Yugo GV Plus (United States)
* Yugo GVX (United States)
* Yugo GVL (United States)
* Yugo Cabrio (United States)
Zastava Koral (Serbia / Europe)
* Yugo Koral (Yugoslavia / Europe)
* Zastava Koral IN (Serbia / Europe)
* Zastava Koral IN L (Serbia / Europe)
Zastava Cabrio(Serbia / Europe)
Zastava Ciao (Serbia / Europe)
Zastava Tempo (Serbia / Europe)
* Zastava Yugo Tempo - circa 1991
Innocenti Koral (Italy)

The Yugo 45 is a subcompact automobile produced by the former Yugoslavian and now Serbian manufacturer Zastava. The main factory is located in the city of Kragujevac in central Serbia.

History

See the main article at Zastava.

Zastava was founded as an arms manufacturer in 1853. By the late 1930s the company had expanded into automobile production supplying Ford designed trucks to the Yugoslavian Army. Vehicle production continued until 1941 when World War II reached Yugoslavia. Following the war Zastava was permitted to produce Jeeps under license from Willys-Overland until production was halted in the early 1950s.

The first passenger models were produced in 1954 and were licensed productions of a variety of Fiat models. The first model designed by Zastava was a sedan called the Milletrecciento and was powered by a 1300 cc engine. Maybe one of the most successful lines were those based on the Fiat 128 model, marketed under different names: Zastava 128, Zastava 311, Zastava Skala, et cetera

Zastava continued to produce vehicles for the Yugoslavian and European markets until exports were limited by sanctions imposed by the United Nations in the 1990s. In 1984, automobile entrepreneur Malcolm Bricklin tested the U.S. market for Zastava vehicles, now branded as Yugo, in Verplanck, New York. As a result, in the summer of 1986, Yugo America began selling cars for $3990. The cars were popular at first due in part to their low price, but soon gained a reputation for being unsafe and unreliable.

By the late 1980s, Yugo America was in financial trouble and American distribution was taken over by Zastava itself. When the political instability in the region intensified in early 1992, however, Zastava was forced to stop exports to the United States.

Zastava was hard hit during the late 1990s due to United Nations sanctions imposed during the Yugoslavian civil war, and Yugo production suffered as a result. In 1999, during the Kosovo War, NATO aircraft deliberately bombed the Zastava car and truck factory, where the workers had set up a 24-hour watch, hoping that their physical presence in and around the premises would exempt it from destruction .

The site was repaired by the same factory workers in the years afterwards, and production continues today on the old site, in Kragujevac.

Today there are various models available in the former Yugoslavia, including an agreement just signed with Fiat for the production of their new Fiat Punto Grande .

Past Models in the Koral Range

Yugo 45 derivative models have included the Yugo 55, 60, 65, Koral, Ciao, Tempo, Cabrio, GV, GV Plus, GVX, and GVL. Yugos were based on the mechanics of the Fiat 128 with an Autobianchi A112-type body and were the evolution of previous Fiat models built under license. However In order to keep prices down, Yugo engines were fitted with a carburetor late into the 1980s, but fuel-injected models (starting with Koral 65) were introduced beginning with the GVX-EFI (Electronic fuel injection), which featured a 1300 cc engine designed by Porsche for Fiat. The fuel injection system was provided by BOSCH and had Multiport fuel injection with a three way catalytic converter and "Lambda" sensor. The engine emissions were 90% under the U.S. standards.

Current models

See the main article at Zastava.

Response to criticism

Note: This article expresses the American view and so the car is expressed as Yugo...

Yugo experienced the same traditional problem in marketing its low-priced automobiles that appeared years before with such other initially-inexpensive cars as the Chevrolet Chevette, Rambler, Crosley and others - dealers were finding to their dismay that too many owners were considering these cars "disposable", and were failing to perform even the most basic maintenance. There were many instances reported of new Yugos driven very forcefully without even any checks of the engine oil levels, let alone oil changes. (One Milwaukee, Wisconsin Yugo dealer told of an angry woman whose engine had finally stalled after nearly 40,000 miles without an oil check. When this was mentioned to her, she retorted that she "didn't buy this car to be having to spend all that money on oil and such". Other, similar stories were common at the time.)

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Zastava vehicles ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Zastava vehicles; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay