Serbian automaker Zastava Automobili
announces end of Yugo production

November 14th, 2008 - KRAGUJEVAC, Serbia - At 9am on November 11th, 2008, Yugo
#794,428 – a red Koral In1 – left the lines at Zastava Automobili’s factory in Kragujevac.

The first Yugo, a hand-built prototype, emerged on October 2nd, 1978.

Zastava workers affixed a small piece of paper to its tailgate, labeled “ćao, nema više”
(“goodbye, no more”). Thus did the famous budget car, once the pride of the former Yugoslavia,
drive into history.

A few tears were shed; the machines ceased whirring, and the group that had gathered around the
car slowly dispersed, somewhat stunned that no formal event had been prepared. While the last
car headed to Zastava’s museum, the men and women who built it were given the task of
preparing the space for Fiat’s purposes.

55 years ago, the late Prvoslav Raković founded Zastava Automobili from the WWII ruins of
century-old Zastava, a cannon foundry and producer of some of the best rifles in the world.

Automobiles. Trucks. Buses. Architecture and construction. Horticulture. Zastava did it all. Well
before World War II, 400 Chevrolet trucks rolled off Kragujevac lines, slated for the Yugoslav
Army. Postwar production began in 1953, when Zastava built 162 Willys jeeps, before
inextricably tying itself to Fiat. 1955 saw the first fruits of this agreement: the Zastava 600D, a
car for the people, and the Zastava AR-51, the truck which would drive Yugoslavia’s postwar
reconstruction.

With production beginning in 1955, Zastava ventured into front-wheel drive in 1971; Europe, in
1972; America, in 1985, and fuel injection, in 1988. As their world imploded in the ‘90s,
Zastava’s workers continued to come to work each morning. When in 1999 NATO used the
factory for target practice, they dutifully cleaned up the damage and, seemingly without need for
dollars or euros, managed again to turn out their budget cars.

In 1945, Toyota could make no more than fish paste. BMW built pots and pans. Volkswagen
produced nothing. Yet bombs could not stop Zastava. Even without the foreign investment
enjoyed by Toyota and Volkswagen, a Zastava Skala 101 rolled off the line just six months after
the factory had been ripped apart.

For an encore, Zastava’s engineers forged an alliance with PSA/ Peugeot-Citroen, and developed
Europe’s most affordable diesel car, the Florida TDC, a five-door hatchback which was praised
by Britain’s Autocar magazine (in its February 20th, 2008 issue) in the last throes of the
company’s independence.

Zastava also builds the Oktopus Finiss which, being rated for 150 km/h, is the world’s fastest
professional-driver training device.

On November 11th, 2008, the final Yugo followed the last Florida2, number #29,950.

The last Zastava 10 (Fiat Punto II.5) was built a few days earlier. When production restarts
(expected to be by the end of the year), it will be rebadged, Fiat Punto.

The last Skala 553 (#1,273,532) will be built on November 20th, marking the last Zastava after 4.2
million cars, of which 700,000 were exported (145,511 to the United States).

Zastava Automobili is currently working with authorities in Congo, Africa, to transfer Skala 55/
Koral In/ Florida In production lines there.

Meanwhile, the Zastava 128 is still assembled in Egypt by El Nasco, where it is a favorite among
taxi drivers.

The success of Zastava is important not only for its Kragujevac home (where metalworking, in
2007, still accounts for 70% of industry), but for Serbia as a whole. Roughly 100,000 people
across 56 towns are directly and indirectly employed by Zastava. Their fate remains unclear. For
them and their families; for Kragujevac, and for Serbia and its economic recovery, it is hoped that
Zastava's rollercoaster ride over the last quarter century is again trending upward.

[Source: Zastava]

Make magazine found an automotive project whereby some enterprising souls in Serbia refitted a Yugo with a powerplant that uses wood-gas for fuel, likely in an attempt to improve the car's performance. The 125-year-old technology relies on incomplete combustion of wood to produce flammable gases hydrogen and methane that can be used to fuel the car. Ironically, even with all the extra hardware, the new powerplant shaved nearly two minutes off a stock Yugo's zero-to-60 time.

Yugo Runs by Wood-gas [Make]

Related:
What Wood He Do for a Mercedes 300 SL? [internal]