I Bought The WORST CAR Ever Made... (YUGO)

wait NO SIDE MIRRORS?!?!?

Guys stop enjoying this video I don't want to be inside that monstrosity anymore

As a Yugo myself i'm happy to see a car made by us last longer then our country itself

As an expert on US market cars I’m thoroughly surprised you found a USDM Yugo that nice! Please take care of it, even if it doesn’t seem worth much at all

Pro tip from Serbia (the OG manufacturer of the Yugo): You should drive with one hand, the other one stays on the shifter to try and keep it in gear. Also start revving immediately upon start to prevent it from stalling.

In all honesty James, I hope you can turn the Yugo around into being a great car - my Alfa 33 was also in the same kind of situation where it needed a full engine rebuild and rewiring work, which involved basically stripping the car down to the floorpan but believe me it's worth it in both a collectible sense and that you're saving a piece of history from the scrapheap

My first car was a Yugo. Back then it actually ran pretty well. The metal on it was super thick too. I enjoyed it. Although, the 57hp was a bit slow...

It's not just a car, it's a whole gym. Swole arms from the steering wheel and swole legs from pushing. It is even eco friendly as it can run on unrefined oil or local moonshine.
Love from Serbia ❤️

I come from Bosnia, an ex-ugoslavian country and these are very common and insanely fun to drive on our cracked asphalt and you will always find it at your grandpas house under a canvas because hes convinced it will become an old timer sold for a lot of money. Oh yes also, they cost around 400 USD here.

To be honest. In Serbia (one of the ex-yugoslav countries) you can find these in close to new condition for like 600 bucks max. 9k for a used Yugo is too much. Also you were lucky to get an original Yugo, most of the Yugos copies were after the 60s made by Zastava. If you got a better model, it would actually be able to climb up a hill :)

Never thought Jameskii would be a car enthusiast i hope he makes more car related content.

Im from serbia and theres a lot of yugos here, you can buy a working one for $200. They are really lasting a long time and if you are out of money its a great Point A to Point B type of vehicle. And the parts cost nothing.

James being a CarTuber is what we need right now, keep it comin' mate!

Well, I did not expect James to buy a car that stopped being produced around the world. Also i am serbian, from a country where the yugos were originally made during the yugoslavian times.

Hey, you Madlad. Huge props for snatching this car and fixing it up. Tempted to buy a shirt to support the car build.

What a little gem this tin on wheels is...
I think I experienced a similar thing with my old vw, the stalling, revving and weird noises when starting the engine. If you'd like to keep working on the car, I think this might be worth looking into:
So, I have a hunch about what went wrong when the car started opening the throttle while you had the clutch in - seems to me like something in the car that's supposed to hold revs while in neutral is malfuncioning. I had that happen in my old vw which still sports a carb. In my case it was the valve cover being a bit warped and not keeping pressure, which led to the carburetor's stepper motor revving the poor thing to 2.5 - 3k without any gas input. The same issue can also affect the ignition - the sound in the video was very similar to what I had experienced - if it doesn't budge, try giving it a bit of gas with the pedal - just a smidge to get it going. Should be usable after that, with minor hiccups along the way, of course.
Try to see if the engine holds pressure, and if no vaccuum lines are busted. There must be something controllong the throttle and keeping it open to prevent the car from stalling in neutral, if you figurr out what that is, it's going to be way easier to diagnose. In my case it was a carburettor stepper motor that was causing the throttle to open - once I figured that out, fixing the issue boiled down to going down a checklist of things that can make it malfunction.
If you're trying to keep this car in a running condition, I hope this helped at least a bit :D

Let's bring yugo back to the market, they make such great cars guys!

A great mod would be to replace the engine with the one found in a Suzuki Hayabusa. Both are I4s with the one in the suzuki being just a little bit bigger, but the Hayabusa's engine makes triple the Yugo's stock horsepower (188 in comparison to the Yugo's 55) and should be a little bit less of a chore to maintain

I had the opportunity to drive these and they were not this level of catastrophic. As for the shifter I don't think it was too much better even from the factory, it reminded me of a maze when trying to shift, but when you memorize the weird pattern it works if it's in good condition. Unreliable throttle response is I think a symptom of bad maintenance because I don't remember that. I had a fun experience when I got used to it, as opposed to a terrifying one. Then again I was driving a 40 year old car too. If you can drive a Yugo you can damn well drive anything.

Imagine buying a car from a country that doesn't exist anymore

The timing is absolutely impeccable as my friend bought the exact model and is currently fixing it up while having the very same issues. I am not one to gamble but if I survive the highway initiation trip with him I probably should gamble.

homie bought a saw trap on wheels and put his friends in it for people to watch and enjoy. mad respect my guy.

In 1990, I was given an '86 Yugo as a loaner for 3 days from a repair shop doing A/C work on my car. It had something over 40,000 miles, and already was on its 2nd engine. I swear everytime I shifted through the gears, the gears were in a different place lol!! The tiny 4 cylinder motor made sporty sounds, but there was no sport 😂

I hope to see this become a posh ride someday. Thank you for taking this hit James, if only we could repay you in full

I really enjoyed this as a different approach to your usual content, you're actually quite competent with cars, you would make a great automotive vlogger.

Can't wait to see how this goes, man. Do it to it. And maybe flintstone it if you gotta.

Love these project car videos, I hope you get the support needed to continue!

i love how 90% of this video is just the car stalling and Fundy screaming

8:37 my guess for that noise is the speedo cable! I have an older miata with the same issue of a jumping speedometer needle, and in colder weather it makes that noise, thought my engine was dying lol. You can try to re-lube the cable if it keeps happening, or replace it outright (if there's even parts available).

This video reminds me of when me and my dad tried and succeeded in fixing our old family minivan that sat in the elements for 5 years and it kept stalling on straightways on the freeway.

The Yugo is far from being the worst car ever made, the thing is it has that title because its a very cheap, very basic, low quality material car, but having lived in Bosnia for several years, I can tell you this, this car is perfect for the balkans, it isn't particularly unreliable, its based off FIAT parts so easy and cheap to source parts for it, its got its character and was an affordable daily driver for the people from that area who don't earn much, I love the Yugo 45 and plan to buy one

I absoultely love the idea of making a series out of getting this car back on the road with something hilarious under the hood.

I have a Yugo 45 that I learned to drive on and I swear it's the most fun car to drive. You literally feel connected to the car since it doesn't have power steering and it has horrendous braking. That means that you'll be driving and working out at the same time! Genious Yugoslavian engineering!

I'm from Serbia, daily driving a Yugo for like 5 years now. It's the most fun car in the history of the world. I believe that carburetor on your car isn't working properly and was making all that mess. BUT, the overheating... yea, that happens too sometimes.

would love to see more automotive content like this every now and then sprinkled between gaming vids

All of us Balkans are proud of you Jameskii, not because of the car, its because of the bravery of driving it

Driving this car is like playing Dark Souls 3 blindfolded

I love when James make car content, I would love to see more content like that on your channel more often

Yugo's weren't always hilariously bad, they were once very functional cars.

If you plan to modify the engine, just replace it. A lot of FIAT engines fit there since it was based on a FIAT model...
However, that might damage the structure of the vehicle since the frame was not built to withstand an engine with a bit of power, so beware of that as well

The car is based on the Fiat 127, which was produced in the 1970s. So what you have is a car which has 70s mechanics. Like cars from that era, they do need a lot of attention. These things are actually quite simple to repair, however they do tend to need repairing quite a bit.

I’m pretty sure there’s some old Yugoslav-Grandpa out there who can get this thing running no problem but until then I can watch James struggle and that’s all I truely need in life

Everytime you guys took out a car part by accident, I thought ALL the car parts were gonna fall off like a cartoon.

as a person from the balkans, i can definitely say that this was one of the hardest moments of jameskii and that i can agree that he looks like an average bosnian.

I had a blast watching this video James. I hadn't laught like this in a while! I hope to see more of the Yugo in the future

Just imagine taking a driving test in this masterpiece, ah good old times.

well that's a nice piece of history right there. Hope to see more about that project :)

This is the car equivalent of juggling chainsaws. While it works, it's pretty cool but the risk factor is always super high, and when things go bad, they go *bad*

This whole video genuinely made me smile, please do more car stuff. I don’t have even close to the money to do stuff with my own project cars so its fun to watch people do stuff with their ridiculous cars.

Even though the car is absolutely horrible, the Yugo has been my dream car for years. I just really love the look of it, and actually fixing it and trying to make it better would be amazing

Be careful with the Ferrari design. They really like to sue anyone for anything close to the brand or name.
Even Deadmau5 was sued.

Fun fact: at a point of desperation, Yugo started selling their cars BUY ONE GET ONE FREE
No other automobile company has done anything close to this

I never expected anyone to pay more than 500$ for a Yugo

I love this type of content, i look forward to seeing more ❤

In fact, you can be happy, that the cars built in Yugoslavia were easier to fix. There is also a great story behind those cars.

ah yes. its the one car my neighbors had for 20 years and insists it still works.

Yugo is literally such a goated car, I have a need to spend a part of my first paycheck on the car + big speakers and have so much fun with my friends in it during the summer
also... no idea how someone managed to sell a Yugo for 9k when it usually goes for 400-600e over here in Serbia

Funniest shit I've watched in a while😂😂. Honestly gave me some "banned from gta" vibes which I loved because honestly it's my favorite series by you

So I looked this up - as with the vast majority of Soviet and Soviet-adjacent cars, this was based on one of the basic designs that Fiat sold to the Soviet Union in exchange for oil (the "Soviet steel from rusty tanks" is a myth invented by British tabloids when the Lancia Beta's first batch of UK models showed early rusting issues which were actually caused by troubles in the production line). The shape of its body made me think of the Fiat Panda, but as far as I knew, that model was never sold to the Soviets...
What happened is that Zastava took a short wheelbase model of the 128, fused it with elements of the 127, and came up with this.

I love this, I want more car content from you James, it would be so fun to see your adventure in cars

I'm excited to see where this project goes. You should make a T-shirt design with "Schrodinger's clutch"

He is totally making it a 2nd Eurobeat Movile for sure, and I'm all invested into that

This is actually a really nice style of video. Hopefully we'll see more irl James. Very nice facial hair 😊

please dont destroy this! WHATEVER YOU DO! PRESERVE IT! these little Yugos are gone, and this one is actually a really really nice example!

This was a great video. It's definitely the best car ever made. It might not be the best at going fast or going at all, but it's the best for content.

It would be fantastic if you could restore this car to working order and/or replace the internals to make it an actually functional and good car

the best part about this is that the company that made this car, Zastava, went bankrupt some years ago and their factory was bought out by Fiat

James you're awesome, keep up the great work!

I have seem some pretty garbage cars. This one shouldn't exist or function in the first place, and yet I love it. Thanks James!❤

As someone with several older cars, manual windows are a blessing.

Holy shit that's awesome, you should def maybe try to get like a new engine put in that because even if it's not stock it's a cool piece of history to have running.

Sad, I owned one back in the day that I paid $50 for. Never had an issue with it till I thought it was a great idea to jump it off road. :( I broke the CV and decided to just leave it there to fill in the hole after the jump. Worked out great for that. 8:39 you pissed off the Hamsters.

holy shit, massive respect for buying something this terrible just to make us laugh

oh poor fundy, the looks of terror and concern had me crying with laughter

yugo james, proud of the work you’re doing

Yugo’s we’re so popular when they first came out. Everyone knew they were cheap but people still loved them. I’ve considered buying one for fun but they sale more now then when they first came out because of the nostalgia of having one now.

Given all the trouble with the engine im really hoping for a crazy engine swap. I kinda of want to see a hyabusa engine go into it 😅

Generally Yugo's that were shipped to the US were of sketchy quality because there was a deadline to deliver them since Yugoslavia owned a lot of money to the Western world and that was a way to pay it back. We still see them rolling around nowadays too here in the Balkans.

I’m from ex-Yugoslavia and have been following Jameskii for years and I’ve never expected him to buy our country’s only car 🤣

Just imagine you pull up to a drag race and see a Yugo with a V8 in it lol.

hopefully you can financially recover from this one after it has all been fixed

Im from Ex-Yugoslavia,and I have to say...
This car is a masterpiece to us,it wont last a lot in the US cause people dont know how it is to be poor.And probably that car was already in bad condition,we here in Ex-Yugo states like to modify the engines,tires,etc. on this vehicle.

That was my Dads first car, fun fact when he was in middle of nowhere the tire started burning. Lets just say he was lucky he really needed to pee. (Also the toold you would get with the car originally were really good, still have them)

I wish you all the luck pimping this little car that could.

This video brings back some childhood memories of the struggles my mother and I experienced having a Polski-Fiat 126p car. We could not really use it much in the harsh Hungarian winter months and we could barely make it on top of the hill where my school was. I felt sorry for my mother whenever we got stuck in the snow on the road or broke down but I gotta admit that the car had special character and weird charm.

heard so much talk about this legend, seeing it on a video is unreal.

Man this gives me Top gear vibes from when it was good, absolutely cracking video James!

I've got one myself, that's a decent car once you fix all the problems. You should try getting 1.6 or 1.3 engine into it.

would be sick to see this car turned into a rally car lmao, sounds like a scuffed james type of project car :) cant wait to see it

To be honest it actually looks fairly nice, I legit like both the exterior and interior aesthetics

I need more videos like this. The chaotic energy of a DankPods/Garbage time car video with Jameskii's humour is perfect

Keep it up Jameskii! I know youtube keeping you out of recommended has been goin on for years now but I'll still support ur content!

I think we have a mascot car now... Thanks Jameskii!!! You're the G.O.A.T.

As someone from former Yugoslav lands this video insolts me a lot yugo is a big part of my life and i love it a lot

As someone who is proud of owning a Yugo, I enjoy this video. Its always fun to clown on the car, but my GVX must not be a lemon, because its went, and it still goes today! Also the GVX is the sporty Yugo, with a whopping 5 extra hp, bringing it up to 60, twice the power of a riding lawn mower.

What did we learn today?
If you planning on buying Yugo, you must have good battery

I would love to see more video like these from you, mostly cause most Car channels aren't as comedic as yours. Keep it up James.

I honestly kinda want one. Best kind of car to fix up, because you already know what you need to replace.

I'd love to see James and Yugo somehow end up on the Hoonigan channel just for laughs.

this guy without a doubt makes the best vlogs