► Plans in motion to resurrect the Yugo name
► Resurrected from ashes of Zastava, aims to rival Dacia
► Scale model revealed at Car Design Event 2025
Yugo is making a valiant return! This is our first tangible look at the all-new, value-focused supermini that’s being created from the ground up: a scale model of the new car at Car Design Event 2025.
We first caught wind of Yugo making a comeback after sketches by Serbian designer Darko Marčeta were made public and the naming rights to Yugo were secured by Prof. Dr. Aleksandar Bjelić – a university professor that has links with to automotive industry in Germany.
If you’re unfamiliar (or under the age of 25), the Yugo was a small supermini built by Zastava at a factory in former Yugoslavia. Its factory is in what’s now Serbia, and the Yugo was a car that was heavily derived from the Fiat 127 and 128.
It was, to put it politely, a car that wasn’t looked on very kindly by the Western world, with the Yugo regularly making lists of the worst cars ever made – usually down to its sub-par handling, weedy performance and rubbish build quality. Even so, it found a cult following around the world, with admirers including CAR’s own European Editor and font of automotive knowledge Georg Kacher, who took one he owns on a massive road trip to the Yugo’s former factory.
At Car Design Event 2025, Bjelić unveiled a scale model of the car he and his team intend to put forward for production. The model shows off very similar design cues initially seen in the sketches; a small, relatively boxy supermini that distinctly features only two doors. In a statement, the Yugo team say the reason for keeping its new car a two-door ‘does not just serve as a historical reminiscence, but underscores the affordability and the sportiness of the new model.’
Yugo has confirmed that the new supermini will launch as a combustion engine car, working on both naturally-aspirated and turbocharged versions, as well as manual and automatic versions. Yugo says that an electric version is possible, as are different body styles. And, to cover that point about sportiness, Yugo has hinted that more details on a performance derivative of the new supermini will be covered in detail in September 2025.
Given it’s a car that’ll wear the Yugo name, the aim is for it to be cheap. Yugo is reportedly looking to secure ‘an established platform from a co-operation partner.’ Yugo says that, after its scale model reveal at Car Design Event 2025, it intends to create a fully functional prototype at the 2027 Belgrade Expo.