Craigslist Ad Drives Yugo Fans into Fury

A 43-year-old American from Orange County, in the US, has angered patriotic Serbs by describing his car as a "pile of crap".

"I have for sale this pile of crap Yugo, designed by a retarded engineer and assembled by a group of drunk workers," the advert reads.

The rest of the advert sounds even less promising, describing the car as no more reliable than jailed US trickster Bernie Madoff.

The Yugo broke into the American car market in the mid-1980s. About 147,000 vehicles were shipped to the US, where it was a relative hit due to its low price. It cost about $4,000 at the time.
 
But the car became infamous in the US for its underwhelming performance. Car Talk magazine voted it worst car of the millennium.
 
The Yugo had a brief moment in the Hollywood spotlight, being used extensively in a 2000 comedy starring Danny DeVito, “Drowning Mona.”

The American selling this "piece of history", as he called it, is selling his car for $2,200.

Instead of potential buyers, many Serbs have filled his email box with offensive messages, some threatening him with violence, he says.

"I got really lots of emails, and about half of them with racial slurs (at the expense of Americans), profanity and other ugly words, including death threats. Serbs do not have a sense of humour," the man was quoted as saying in the Serbian daily Politika.

After 30 years of production, the last Yugo rolled off the Zastava company’s assembly line in the Serbian town Kragujevac in 2008. Yugos are still alive on the roads, however, as well as in a book, entitled The Rise and Fall of the Worst Car in History, by Jason Vuic.