17 Oct
2025
17 Oct
'25
4:06 p.m.
On Oct 17, 2025, at 4:58 PM, Doc Shipley via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
On 10/17/25 15:25, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:
Subaru was actually not the worst.
Think of Yugo! Imported into USA from 1985 - 1992
https://www.librarypoint.org/blogs/post/the-yugo/
It was brought in by Malcolm Bricklin. He had also been the one to bring in Subaru 360,
and founded subaru Of America.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin(a)xenosoft.com
I worked on a few Yugos, and had a disproportionate number of friends who owned them. My
take:
They were designed & built on the AK-47 Principle - inelegant, ultra-simple, no
consideration at all for style, and manufactured to intentionally ridiculous tolerances.
Turned out all that works a lot better in a rifle than an internal-combustion vehicle.
If you accidentally got one that was built pretty tight they were solid cars, but most of
them died early when one bearing or another grenaded.
Doc
Jason Vuic’s book on the Yugo is one of the better business history books out there. It
does into Bricklin’s insanity , the desire for cheap and small cars , brand rebadging, and
why Yugos were built with so low quality.
That quality boiled down to lack of quality controls and processes. It is why I refer to
Teslas as tech bro Yugos because Tesla makes the exact same mistakes that Yugo did with
their manufacturing process.
https://www.jasonvuic.com/the-yugo
-Andy Wallis
Some makes and models of cars don't last ten years
and auto makers don't WANT them to last;
On Fri, 17 Oct 2025, Van Snyder via cctalk wrote:
Subaru: Built cheap and designed to stay that way.