Yugo: Power in a Reputation, Not the Car.

Jason Vuic, author and historian, joins Leslie and I to discuss one of the best examples of quality reputation and public perception: the Yugo.

Zastava manufactured the low cost car in the 1980's, but low cost could not overcome the quality issues that turned the name Yugo, into a punchline for jokes. Car and Driver named it "Worst Car in History."

Jason wrote the book: The Yugo -The Rise and Fall of the Worst Car in History and joins us to discuss the impact of quality on reputation and how the Yugo fits into history.

To learn more about Jason Vuic and his work, see his website:  https://www.jasonvuic.com/home

Transcript

Aaron Harmon: 0:00

Hi, I'm Aaron Harmon.

Leslie Cooper: 0:01

And I'm Leslie Cooper. Welcome to Inside Out quality.

Aaron Harmon: 0:05

Leslie and I are quality nerds. We like to figure out what can go wrong and how it can be prevented. Cap is our our friend. How can we use quality to build better safer products? Can quality be a tool entrepreneurs use for success? On

Leslie Cooper: 0:19

this podcast we talked to some fascinating guests and listen to their stories about quality events gone both right and wrong. we dissect these stories to teach and learn from the experiences of our guests. So grab your coffee, secure the lid, ensure it's not too hot and enjoy our episode.

Aaron Harmon: 0:38

In reference to medical devices, the FDA defined quality as a totality of features and characteristics that bear on the ability of a device to satisfy fitness for use, including safety and performance. When things go wrong in quality. There can be recalls injuries to patients or simple things like minor audit findings, but there's something more damning for a company loss and reputation. On Friday, September 22 1989 Leslie pleau Her drove her 1987 You go across the Mackinac Bridge to meet her boyfriend Fred. She never arrived. As she crossed a five mile suspension bridge. She lost control of her car and tragically went over the edge of the bridge falling nearly 200 feet to the lake below. You guys already had a reputation for being a cheap low quality car, like very low quality that had anything to do with the accident. Leslie's death. No, but that didn't stop the newspapers from drawing attention to the car. One headline from the Detroit Free Press included please divers are unable to extricate Mackinac Bridge victim from Yugo. They go on to describe extensive accordion like damage to the vehicle. Another editorial in the Lansing State Journal included this about the accident are more likely Perhaps those who have decried Japanese and European made cars of the Yugo class is unsafe or right. The Yugo had a reputation. Any issue whether or not the fault of Yugo would be blamed on the car. public confidence was completely lost. egos are no longer made. We can learn a lot from the story of the Yugo and to help us as Jason Buick, who wrote the book titled The Yugo the rise and fall of the worst car in history, Jason earned his PhD from Indiana University. He is the author of books ranging from the shady dealings in Florida real estate and then 1850s to the 1970s Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Jason is also one of the very few experts out there and Yugo's Welcome to Inside Out quality Jason,

Jason Vuic: 2:27

thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

Aaron Harmon: 2:29

First question on the Yugo's, which joke was your favorite?

Jason Vuic: 2:34

Well, that mean there were so many jokes back in those days and then I went to various websites this is in the early 2000s And I guess it's relatively new new days of the internet. I started looking at all the different jokes but the one I thought was the microphone dropper was remember in the 80s kids would have these yo mama jokes you know your mom's dumb or your mom is so fat or whatever I can't remember the one joke that really made me laugh out loud was just simply your mama drives a Yugo nominee she was or how fat she was or any of the cut down that sixth graders would say and say 1984 this was simply your mother drives a Yugo and that was enough and I thought that was laugh out loud funny. There are many there are many

Aaron Harmon: 3:20

and when I was in grade school the joke we had was if you drive a Yugo you go nowhere.

Unknown: 3:26

Yeah, something like that. There's another one you know why? Why did it you know most of them are kind of traditional car jokes. Why does a Yugo have a rear window defroster so keep your hands warm when you push it that kind of stuff? And there's so many attributed to the Yugo but then you look at a lot of these jokes and then they pass them over to the pinto or the Hyundai or you know what I mean a lot of these jokes just transfer from car to car to car but the yo mama drives a Yugo is pretty unique. Pretty singular.

Aaron Harmon: 3:56

Why did the Yugo get such a bad reputation?

Unknown: 3:59

Wow. Well, we need about three hours. You know, I think it was the Yugo was just you know by a bit of history. The Yugo was a car from the former Yugoslavia communist state that was semi open, Yugoslavs could leave the country and work in Western countries. Yugoslavia's could earn hard currency which they could bring back. And so the Yugo was, it was sold in the United States, even though this was Ronald Reagan's America. This was the kind of a one of one of the flashpoints of Cold War communism, right. Reagan was tough on communists, but they could sell this car. But, you know, it failed, I believe, because it was a 70s era car. The quality wasn't very good. But it was a dated automobile with data technology sold, right when small cars really rocketed into the stratosphere in the American market, Japanese cars, and I use this term all the time related to Japanese cars in the 80s became bulletproof. And so when the you Go arrived, it was old, it was poorly built. And it was competing even with us Honda's and US Toyotas and so Americans just reacted almost viscerally to the car you know, I believe this was you know, the decade you know, kind of this this me decade you were what you were you were what you bought, you know, think of the movie Wall Street or risky business, all these movies of, of excess. That was the time we lived in. And the Yugo was just countercultural. And so I think all these things came together to produce a car. And other reasons to that just became kind of a national Joe

Aaron Harmon: 5:39

Magnum P, I did not drive you go.

Unknown: 5:43

No way. No way. So I know you mentioned in your book, quite a few examples of poor quality during manufacturing. Can you give us a couple of examples that people saw? Yeah. Well, the first there are two examples from the book. You know, I'm not a car guy. I can't tell you the specifics of what was wrong with her. But in general, there wasn't one singular failing for the Yugo. It was just not really put together very well. You can't point to, you know, you know, what kind of a lemon like issue and a big recall, the car worked. It just didn't work. Well. The one thing and this goes to quality, which you guys are interested in when the Americans first went over to Yugoslavia. This is a man named Malcolm Bricklin and his assistant named Tony seminara, who worked for Fiat of America. These guys knew small cars. Bricklin had co founded Subaru of America. seminara had been a writer for automotive magazines, but also someone who had worked on Pininfarina. And Bertoni is coming to the United States. They flew to Belgrade and Zastava, the company that makes the Yugo is located about an hour and a half an hour and 45 minutes away. They drove up several Yugo's to the Intercontinental Hotel, it's in the parking lot. The first time the Americans are meeting the Yugoslavs the first time, they're actually getting into the car, and seminario opens the trunk. And he notices in a brand new Yugo rust marks. There's rust in the trunk. And he can't believe it. You know, how is this possible that a new car has rust in the trunk, and it was a new car. And then when finally they got to the factory, he realized that this was one giant open air space. So in the same factory where they're grinding parts, grinding metal, microscopic bits of metal or getting into the air and getting into the the paint area, the paint Lab, which should be you know, almost a place where you get an open heart surgery, you know, you go to Detroit, these places, you know, it's like being in outer space and a spacesuit. They're absolutely surgically clean. And then you Islamia they're just spraying down cars. You know, and these microscopic particles got into the paint, which then was sprayed on the cars, and they weren't painted very well, these particles begin to rust, they're not trapped in the paint. And the car has rust marks, the cars weren't old, they weren't rusty, but that just shows you, you know, the, the, you know, the, you know, they just hit did not pay any attention to detail at all levels, from the design of the plant, which really was an early Earth late 1800s Giant facility, you know, all the way to, you know, the the quality of breaking or the quality of the plastic or there was no testing. Nothing that we do in the United States or in the West was done in former Yugoslavia. One other quality issue, I remember, there was a Detroit consultant who was brought in to help with, you know, emissions. That was his background. And that was the big part of the car. And he's watching the Yugo assembly line. And he follows it from the very beginning to the very end, he's walking in this giant, you know, River Rouge like plant, incredibly vivid Serbia, and he's watching it and he gets to where they're connecting the back taillights. So all that, you know, all those electrical wires are coming from the front, through the bottom of the car out the back. Well, the connectors were too big for the holes that had been stamped to come out the back. So you'd have to remove the connectors to each of the wires, and then put them back on after the wires have been put through the hole. And so you know, one in every 10 One in every 21 Never 30 cars, one of the taillights wouldn't work. Right. And so no one noticed no one noticed at all. And they had produced hundreds of 1000s of cars. And this one American simply walks down the line and goes oh my god, it was a mistake. Right? And so this was common in an industry where those type of mistakes were less and less common.

Aaron Harmon: 9:51

I've been in companies where there's pride around quality. And so you hear these quality initiatives and we're quality minded and etc, etc. It sounds like that was not how thing as you go plan?

Unknown: 10:02

Well, I think it goes back to the market itself. Right? You know, we've had companies in the past that had monopolies where quality wasn't even part of the operation, right. Sure. I mean, competition breeds, you know, an intense quest for quality, because quality means the buyer will come to you. Right. And I'm not a quality expert. I'm not a business expert. I mean, that's just common sense. Right? And in communist countries, you know, and I'm not even blasting communist countries that you just saw me did a lot of things right, in its own way for a developing country. But when you don't have any competition, you know, why worry about that? When there are no lemon laws, there's no way to, you know, buy a Yugo in Belgrade in 1983. And, you know, the wheel comes off, there's no one to sue. There's no way to sue, you know, there's no legal framework, there's no contractual framework. And there are no competitors. So you would order a car, and it would be delivered to you, you know, weeks or months later. And you didn't have any say over the interior. You didn't have any say over the color. Or when you know, you certainly didn't drive it off the dealer lot, because there were no dealers. This was just, you know, a culture in which, you know, the idea of salesmanship was foreign. And the idea of competition was foreign. What you know, why would a communist country have two car builders competing with each other? You know, this was just foreign to them. I mean, you know, I think the great Ronald Reagan joke if I'm trying to remember this one from the 80s, it was used to just rip on the Soviet Union in his speeches, and people love this. i It's really funny. And Reagan once said a joke, a man goes into a lot of dealership or a car dealership and Soviet Union and orders a car and he puts down his hard earned rubles. And they said, Okay, it'll, it'll be available and sent to your house in 10 years. And the guy says, morning or afternoon, right. And so that was the, that was the joke about, you know, the Soviet and communist era, you know, companies, not just car companies, you know, there was very little competition. And without competition, there's, there's really no sense that we need to improve quality.

Aaron Harmon: 12:14

So Malcolm Bricklin was the entrepreneur that helped make the Yugo in the US happened. And Did he understand that, hey, the expectations of the customers in terms of quality is going to look very different in the US than it does over in some of the Soviet states.

Unknown: 12:31

No, I don't think Bricklin unlike some of his car guys, who had been, you know, in the trenches of the industry, working with Fiat fixing problems. He had a couple guys that had been with Fiat, and then with Bertone and Pininfarina who had actually done written, sat down and wrote the owner's manuals. Imagine that I never thought about someone sitting down and being the author of an owner's manual. These guys knew cars, right? They had been in the business. Bricklin new cars, but he was a salesman. That was his background. He he was a kid from Philadelphia. His father had moved to Florida in the 50s, late 50s. We're calling fail that a college or quit University of Florida, you know, he just wasn't for college, but a very, very intelligent man, very capable man. His father owned hardware stores. And Bricklin got the idea that he would franchise his father's hardware stores. This was the area for an age of franchises. And so Bricklin started out with that, and that led to lawsuits and bankruptcies, and he moved to jukeboxes, and then he moved to scooters and Italian scooter, then then a Japanese scooter. And that led to Fuji Heavy Industries, which had a car the Subaru 360 Was this little dinky car. The car itself was lower, far lower than the bumper of a Mustang of a 1960s Mustang. You know, it had suicide doors, they call them that would that would open forward burned outboard motor oil right there in this this was a vaguely an automobile. Cute little funky car, but certainly a very dangerous car out on the roads. You know, not even in the era of big American cars. This was just a poorly built small Japanese car. But Bricklin got the idea to import these started Subaru of America. And then they moved to a bigger car. Bricklin was bought out that he was not a car guy as much as he was just a salesman. He wanted to sell anything, you know, and he moved on in his career, from Subaru to his own car, the Bricklin SV one, which was a you know hodgepodge of American parts in this hot rod like machine that were thrown together with, you know, a fiberglass kind of 60 6070s exterior, right? It was a cool car for the time, but he didn't know anything about it, how it was built, why it would fail, why it didn't work, and when that collapse, he moved on to the next car and the next car so we had experience with cars. But in terms of quality, you know, knowing much about it. You know, some of his former workers told me Bricklin would say to them, I don't know much about what's under the hood. You know, he knew the numbers. He knew how to talk about it. But he was not a mechanic. And these other guys were, you know, were mechanics. They love cars, they work for him. And so some of them new, as the Yugo was being prepped for the American market, we're in trouble. This is I don't know if it's gonna go. I doubt it. The Fiat didn't go in the United States. It didn't work in the Yugo was a Fiat derivative. It was simply a Fiat made by Yugoslavs and the same Fiat that the Yugo was based on that the same to fiat. So 127 and 128 had failed in America. So clearly, he didn't think about quality. He thought about salesmanship. The reason it failed, and Brooklyn's mind. And this is my opinion, was that the salesmanship was poor. I can do better than that. Whereas the guys fixing the car probably knew. You know, this is interesting. It might go if it's very, you know, has a very low price, but I doubt it. Most of them doubted it as the Yugo came to America. What got you interested in this story? I always think it's fascinating to figure out why people pick up on a certain thing. Well, you know, I'm not a again, I've said this before, I'm not a car guy just like good stories. But my my background, my family background, my grandparents immigrated from the Balkans, they were served from Croatia, and I always had a family interest. And I'm a historian, I have a PhD in Balkan and East European history I had studied in the early 90s, mid 90s, to you know, either be an expert or a professor, I eventually became a professor. But I found that when the when the wars were on in the 90s. I was in college when the war started. And I was in grad school when the wars ended when the Kosovo war started in 99. So I traveled there a lot. I lived in the region as a Fulbright in the region, probably lived there for about two and a half, three years in the 90s. And as I finally realized I could be a writer and I had been through grad school and was now running a master's program at Ohio State, I realized I was about 10 years too young, if I had been about 10 years older, I could have been there right when the war started and written some books on former Yugoslavia. But by the time I was ready to write, he was unbelievable how many books had been written and some great ones and some atrocious ones. But there was really no in for me, if I wanted to write something for a popular audience. And it hit me that if I want to write about former Yugoslavia, I'm going to have to write about something that that people know. And the Yugo was the thing that all Americans seem to know of, maybe they didn't know it. But they knew enough that you know, a yo mama drives the Yugo joke is pretty funny. And so that kind of drew me to it. And then once I got into the story, I find this, this wildly fascinating entrepreneur, I find this world automotive market suddenly has an opening at the very low end, during the 1980s for cheap car to come to the United States. And then you know, 80s 80s culture, and it all fit together, you know, a communist car sold in Reagan's America, a 3990 econobox sold, at the time when we all want Gucci and Fendi, and we're even branding fruit. We're branding water, bottle water, we're branding and selling for, you know, 1000s of times more than than what it costs. And people are buying it. You know, that was the generation that had fake telephone antennas on their cars, just to look like they had a telephone, in their car in those days pre cell phone, right. And so it all came together into this crazy package of the UFO book. And I, you know, I didn't set out as a car guy I didn't set out. You know, I set out as a Ubisoft historian, a European historian wanting to write books for an American audience. And I and I really think I found something, something unique. I don't know many books like this that have been written. And I mean, even now, I wrote the book in 2010. And I'm doing your podcast on issues of quality control. You know, I've done many, many, many talks on the Yugo car over the years, and I still get mail from Yugo owners asking me if I can find them parts, that kind of stuff. You know, I've gotten a hate mail from Yugoslavia over the book I've gotten. I mean, you name it, I still get it from the Yugo book. And, you know, I'm, I've moved three books on from this. And I still, you know, not just as ideas for movies. There's a screenplay floating around right now, which is my second screenplay that someone's written, and we've optioned it two or three times. I mean, there's their staying power in the Yugo that the car is long gone and I haven't seen one on the roads. I haven't seen one on the road since I did an interview with NPR in the book in 2010. They wanted to do an interview in a Yugo car. We searched far and wide and we luckily found a guy in Delaware who was willing to come to Washington and we I got in the car with Guy Roz Weekend Edition. And we drove around DC with a with a producer with a boom and a microphone in my face at rush hour and people were honking at us and waving at us and just thought it was so surreal, right i i never thought this was possible for for a writer. But but the Yugo has done it for me. That's awesome. That's fantastic.

Aaron Harmon: 20:41

I came across Leslie blue horror story and the car going over the Mackinac Bridge. Ah, terrible. And my first instinct was oh, that's proof that Yugo was really bad. That really sounds like it had nothing to do with the being a Yugo and it was more like the reputation was so bad by that time. That it just stuck us that must have been the reason is that

Unknown: 21:01

yes, um, you know that that incredibly huge bridge is it? Is it the Mackinac Bridge that he St. Macedon back in our bridge? Yeah. And it's it's massive. And it goes from, you know, Michigan to Upper Peninsula, Michigan. You know, I grew up near the Sunshine Skyway Bridge in Florida that goes over Tampa Bay and it in the old days, the new ones quite nice and not scary at all. The old one, you know, built look like it was going off into Hades up and I don't know, it reminded me of Wizard of Oz, you know, you see the you know, the monkeys flying around. It was It was horrific. So this big bridge in Michigan, a lot of people are terrified to drive over over the years. You know, it was built a long time ago. I think pre World War Two, if I'm not mistaken. And this woman, a poor woman was driving a Yugo This is in I'm thinking 88 or 89. You know, the Bricklin, I think was already out of the game. You go it already kind of collapsed, it was already a national joke. And this poor woman was driving the Yugo and she, for whatever reason, was driving along and witnesses if I remember this correctly, you know, she veered sharply, either, you know, across lanes, just you maybe she was picking something off the floor, who knows, but she just took a sudden, sharp left turn, and went, you know, straight at the barrier across oncoming cars in the barrier in those days, and I haven't been over the bridge. I don't know what it looks like today. I actually got the reports from what happened. They simply had this tube, this long, long tube that you would hit if you're going north south, you would hit it with your wheel and keep going north south. Well, she hit this tube. And it just picked up the car and she went along the the the tube and then up onto the railing, and then kind of teetered on the railing and fell over and fell in incredible distance to the water. She was probably dead on impact than the car sunk. And it was right on a precipice under the water. Dark frightening. And the the national news picked up the story and it was that the Yugo had been blown, kind of bodily picked up and blown off the bridge by the wind. And it just sounded right. Right. And I believe people were trying to even get the show Mythbusters to try to reenact that it just seems kind of dark right? to reenact this. But the more you think about it, though, the wind didn't pick up her car unblocked. First of all, she drove across an oncoming lane, then hit this barrier, jumped up hopped kind of bunny hopped onto a railing and then went even further. So the wind really didn't have anything to do with it, though. I know there were big lawsuits. I don't know how they were settled or not. I don't really remember this because the company went bankrupt and then country fell apart. I don't think the suits were ever even figured out. Ever. But the Yugo was almost a ton, you know, 17 1800 pounds. It's just seems ridiculous that you know, I've lived through hurricanes. I haven't lived through twisters. But nothing was going to move the car up and off this bridge. And I mean, they've had people on motorcycles go over the bridge they've had I think in recent years they had a car do the same thing and it was an SUV. And certainly the wind didn't pick that up. But you know I didn't approach this defending the car or looking to talk down you know, on this this poor families claims but it's just part of the Yugo mythology, right that the car had had collapsed, um, sales wise had become a national joke. And then you have this tragedy and it just makes kind of sense until you really think about it. And that's the the Blue Horse story. It's It's tragic, poor woman.

Aaron Harmon: 24:56

Yeah, and by that I feel like the reputation had just was already solidified in culture. So it's

Unknown: 25:03

Yeah, yeah, that's the truth with the Yugo.

Aaron Harmon: 25:06

This may be kind of like a side shoot. But if you were to compare Yugo and Subaru it sounds like they started off kind of in the same setting. Subarus are still here today.

Unknown: 25:18

Yeah, I mean, I think I mean, that's the key when you go back, I have a catalog. You know, I bought this in the early 2000s. It was like the Standard Catalog of American of imported cars. It's giant, it's a big giant book, you might be able to order it. And you see all the different foreign car companies that tried to make it here. Right, these cars are being produced in other countries, very rarely. I think Hyundai was different, but very rarely, with some of these dinky cars, with the company, try to export it was some American with an idea. Right? Some wildly American said, Hey, why don't we try to bring over these first cars. And typically, it was a cheap car, someone was abroad, someone saw a car in the streets of France, or someone saw, you know, a little Citroen and they thought maybe we could bring this over. So they went to CITRI, enter Fiat or whoever else, some companies you've never heard of. And they went to him and said, hey, you know, why don't we bring this car over? And you know, what are you selling it for here? They figure it out, they bring it over? The car wasn't really up to American standards. So you think of you know what this first Subaru 360 I'm talking about quality your your listeners should look up the 360 It looks like something cousin it you know, Cousin It would drive. Right, right. It's a cutest little car. It's funny, but I mean, holy smokes. Consumer Reports reviewed it in the review said not acceptable. Super 360 not acceptable. And, and that's true. You know, and I got people who were mad at me when I wrote this in the Yugo book, I'm like, I'm just telling you what experts that Consumer Reports wrote, I've never seen as Uber 360. Other than the pictures, I just know, it was built for tiny post world war two Japanese street. So you know, a rebuilding culture, with very little money, a lot of suffering and a need. Now for mobility. So this thing was like a covered moped in a way. And this comes to the United States. And so a number of cars would come over that way, oftentimes to New Jersey to the eastern coast, to New York. And then eventually, a lot of these cars were kind of seen as funky. And they caught on in California, places along coastlines, where you could import these cars. And so Subaru came over. I don't know what it sold for a few 1000 bucks, maybe. But it didn't have a dealer network behind it, it didn't have a history behind it in the United States. So unless these companies came in with a lot of money, unless dealers bought in, and they had the staying power and the wherewithal and push their own cars and tried to improve quality to bring it back to your show. These cars were going to fail. The Japanese were the ones to truly push quality. You know, on a level, the Americans had never really understood even the Americans. And they're the ones that that had the staying power and the wherewithal to turn Subaru and Nissan and Honda and Toyota into into true winners. But in the beginning, you're right, the Yugo was very similar, poor dealer network, not a lot of money, a car that had never really been here, kind of funny, kind of cute, and poorly built. But the Subaru was able to then build a better car and send a bigger car. And the Yugoslavs were not, they didn't have the money. Bricklin didn't have the money, sales had tanked, and then Yugoslavia goes into a civil war. So there's, there's really no way to bring the car in or find the money when you even the parts in Yugoslavia, the plastic came from Croatia, the tires came from wherever, and you couldn't even put the car together anymore. So that was the failure that so we have a process called continuous improvement, where you start with somewhere something shows up, you do an inspection, essentially find the root cause implement a way to correct it in the future to prevent it. And then you loop and as you do it, your company gets better and better and better quality over time. And so the more established companies, especially in the pharmaceutical space have very high quality standards, where startups are often on that very front end is trying to get a product they can get interest in Oh yes, yes. I mean, and then it goes back to you know, this continuous improvement when there's no competition in the domestic market where it's made right you know, you go never competed with it with another Ubisoft car in its defense when this book came out I did you know there was all this media and you know, Time Magazine interviewed me for this thing and was like was the Yugo the worst car in history, author view X defense. And I'm like, Well, I mean, yeah, I guess I defended it kind of in the book, but I'm not, you know, a defense, like, it sounds like I'm passionate. You know what I mean? Like, someone sent me a Yugo shirt. I'm like, I'm not walking around with a Yugo shirt on. I'm not the Yugo guy, great. Oh, it's just great Looney Tunes this whole history of me in this book. But it might have been time, I think I was so thrilled to be in there. But it was like, author view, its defense and in its defense, and now I will defend it. The car was simply it was a moped, it was a basic mode of transportation in a poor country. And it did what it was supposed to do, you know, you got to hark back into that early post World War Two period when, you know, it was everyone bought a car, or they bought an old car, and they worked on it. You know, everyone was kind of a grease monkey in their garage. You know, you think of think of the movie American Graffiti, right at the age of cruising. People love cars, that early era, and I'm sure American cars did what they were supposed to do, but no one went crazy about the cars broke down, you fixed it. That's the way that you were slumps. Were right. It, it is what it is. It's not horrible. It's not, you know, wonderfully built. But it gets us to point A to point B and we can fix it in our garage or below our communist housing block. And we can get in this car and we could drive to the coast, we could drive to Greece or, or Italy and buy blue jeans. Right. And so most Yugoslavs I spoke to of that era have profound profound nostalgia for the Yugo car, whereas in America, it's an absolute joke. And so when I wrote this book, I wrote it for an American audience, about America's 80s love hate relationship with this car, how a simple, you know, unobtrusive object becomes such a, an object of ridicule and scorn. Whereas in Yugoslavia, people were like, Yeah, what do you want? It's a UFO. What do you think it is? You know, whereas Americans didn't approach it that way, you know, Americans expected and again, to bring it back to quality Americans expected by the 1980s, that small cars were bulletproof. They expected a Toyota Camry or a Toyota Tercel or a Honda Civic, to go for it, not 100,000 miles, 200 300,000 miles, you would never expect that from a GM product. Right? No one drove a Cadillac 200,000 miles, right, you would spin that off and buy a new one. And that was the culture of owning cars in America. But the Japanese changed that with their quality. And so in many ways Americans didn't even understand anymore, what the Yugo was, whereas they might have understood it in an earlier age. When the Volkswagen came, for example. You know, the Volkswagen was a better car. It ran better than the Yugo but but not significantly. It wasn't like the Yugo was breaking down every three minutes. It was just people expected so much more by the mid 1980s. From cars, and here comes this communist built, poor quality, poorly produced car designed in the early 1970s. So it's it's almost 15 years old. When it gets to America. It's no longer built by the company that designed it. So this is a second run with the old stamping machines that were actually put on trucks or boats and shipped from Italy to Serbia, and then sold in America. And so people's expectations of quality had shifted radically, especially in cars. So much so that Americans no longer bought low end American cars, like Chevette or Pintos, or nobody wanted a piece of one of those cars. They thought they were not only low end, but they also thought they were dangerous, right, because of the Pinto. The quality was low. Nobody wanted these cars. So the Americans even quit the low end of the market, because it was so hard to compete with the Japanese on quality. So if you go still had a pathway to be manufactured, do you think that could have overcome the reputation? Well, one, you won the country? We'd have to stay together? Right. It's so I mean, what it could have showed I mean, I you know, that's such a huge historical process. They weren't getting early on. Right yellow and green, incredible advertising, and that goes back to Brooklyn and his ability to sell Hyundai was I guess I can counter with this that if Hyundai had not had the Yugo in front of it. The Yugo came about a year before the Hyundai did the Hyundai XL. And the first Hyundai XL was was a piece of garbage. It wasn't fundamentally better than the Yugo. It was a little bit bigger. And it would have been a disaster. It I believe that when the Hyundai first came to America if the Yugo had not come, we would have been making jokes about Hyundai the rise and fall the worst car in history. Hyundai would not have been here anymore, that's me going out on a limb but the difference was was the Yugo was here first, Yugo took all the scorn and all the ridicule and Hyundai is this giant integrated, you know South Korean endeavor that has ships. They own the ships that they put the cars on. They own the steel that go into the cars, right, this giant integrated company that had the money to improve quality that had the money to stay in the market despite losses and come out as you know, Hyundai's are beautiful cars today. But nobody would have ever imagined that back in 1986 1987, it would have been laughable to think that Hyundai would have done that. So you know, with the Yugo still have been here, they needed a bigger car. Yugo America Brooklyn's team. They were complaining and the dealers were complaining in like 8687 88 that we need a Hyundai fighter. We need a bigger car with just a little bit bigger, like a coupe kind of Nana coupe. But I can't even describe it. But like the Hyundai was somewhat bigger like the Dodge Colt in order to compete and the Yugoslav simply couldn't do it. They actually ordered a Hyundai XL had it shipped all the way to Serbian took it apart. They took it apart to kind of, I don't know reverse engineer it why? I don't know it wasn't a car like you're gonna learn anything from but they took it apart. And one of the Americans who was working there said that Ubisoft took it apart and couldn't put it back together. So it just sat on the floor of the Zastava factory in pieces, right. But that was part of the story that they needed a Hyundai light car and they didn't have the money. They didn't have the ability to pay for it. Bricklin was gone. The investors who bought Yugo weren't interested in that car. They were interested in a different car. That was it. There was no chance for the Yugo to ever stay in the American market. The country went to war in 1991. In Croatian and Bosnian 92 And that was it, forget it. Now it's gone.

Aaron Harmon: 37:04

Do you have any lessons for the biotech and medtech community seeing this? It's one that puzzles me is like your reputation? But like other insights?

Unknown: 37:12

Yeah, I mean, I've actually thought of putting together a book I did a book after this Yugo book, and it was the same idea. You know, how did this car become a national laughingstock? What was it that made it transcendent? I mean, we've had terrible products and bad ideas. How about clear coke? Right? Remember that clear Coke, but no one ridicule me. If you bring it up, you roll your eyes, but that's it. No one's making jokes about clear Coke or giant movie discs. You know what I mean? Or, or any of these other things that have failed and other cars, right? You know what lessons I thought I would do a book maybe on lessons and losing. I did a book after this book on the 1976 77 Tampa Bay Buccaneers which have lost which lost more games in a row than any other team in NFL history. 26 games in a row. And there was a lot of the same thing going on that people lose teams lose. But no one makes jokes about whatever the lions team was maybe 1015 years ago that lost every game. No one makes jokes about it. But they made jokes about the Bucs. They call them the jocks. You know, it was on Johnny Carson, it was on, you know, George Carlin people would just make jokes about the Buccaneers. And so I started to kind of pay attention to when failures become iconic, right? I've thought about doing some sort of book on on failures in business, right? And how they happen and how people respond to them. And so you can get into the nitty gritty, on your end on on quality and the product itself, but then you can go into the culture of products, right, how Americans respond to products, whether or not they use them correctly, or, or not. Right. So that's where I came back to the idea that, you know, during the 1980s, the Yugo wasn't just a cheap car, Americans like cheap things. They like Walmart, but they don't like cheap in terms of quality, like like flea market, low, low and cheap, they just do not. And I think that's a lesson for companies to learn is that you want to improve the quality and you want to, you know, you want to sell and cut down the price to make a good cheap and it has to be well built, or it has to be reasonably well built, or marginally well built right. You just can't produce crap because eventually, people will walk away. People won't do it in the United States and in certain products. If you do have a cultural cachet to it, you need to be careful. You know, how do people consume your product? Right? It might be one thing if it's some sort of industrial product or Chemical, but if it's a consumer good with as much baggage that automobiles carry in our culture, right? I mean, even today, it's different kids are a little different today with cars, but still, you know, in the 80s we all knew what men have, you know, your your sister is going on a date with a new guy and he rolls up in a red brand new BMW, what's the first thing you think he's rich, right to keep her you know, he has, or if he or if he rolls up in a Volkswagen van with funky things written on the side of Ignite, the happier you know, we have these connotations to certain products in cars are easy, but there's other other products out there clothing, right. So I just think there's lessons in not just quality, but in the culture of products that are produced and sold and consumed.

Aaron Harmon: 40:50

My first car was a Plymouth Reliance station wagon. That said about me.

Unknown: 40:56

Well, I mean, you know, did you okay, here's the question. Did you ever when you were in high school, and you're driving that around? Did you ever wish you were a better car or feeling you know, going on a date or you go to pick up a girl or, you know, did you ever wish you had a different car?

Aaron Harmon: 41:10

Well, I took that. So there's a little bit of a story behind this, but my first car was technically a Camaro was 84 Camaro and before I could drive it, my sister told it so that was our pitch. Oh, no, very tragic. So then I get this almost blind stationwagon it's red or something, but I decided to try to polish it up a little bit. So I bought went to Walmart and got these nice hubcaps and put some nice hubcaps on there. Then I bought these side panels and bolted side panels on to give it like lower to the ground look, and then began attempting to do something with the motor which was futile and never resulted in much but I tried to make it a different car.

Unknown: 41:51

See, my first car was wasn't eating at nine Mercury Grand Marquis, like we're talking a boat. Right. And it was that really pleasant brown color, you know that I think they tried to call Maroon. With the matching cloth seats on the inside. It was like driving a big couch. And just thinking how ridiculous the names of cars you know, Grand Marquis, and we were wondering what are we? I mean, are you in France right? Or do you don't have a you know, you went Endora? Are you a royalty? Are you a Duke or Duchess of Andorra just silliness, right? Grand Marquis or the El Dorado right? Just so ridiculous. But you don't you don't even think about him. Right? What was your mind was a 66 Mustang? Oh, I know. That I know. Right. Right. For Well, I'll tell you what happened. My parents were getting. They were somewhere I don't know. But they saw it on the wall of a business a picture and it was $3,200 in 1987 or 88. Right. And so they were tired of taking me to sports practices. You know, I was a free roaming kid. And my parents just wanted to be left alone. They were good parents, but they just really wanted me to be out and about. And so they're like, alright, you can pay us back. We're getting you this car so you can not ever be picked up again. And so we went to buy it and the guy tells me the stories like Oh, my family. I remember we got this off a lot. We had so many good memories, and I really want you to have good memories too. And this guy like hugs me Friday, he's passing this car to me. And so it was loud. I remember being on the interstate and I was a Mustang you think they're fast muscle cars and I'm not a car guy again. So I remember putting my you know, pedal to the metal and it's barely going 65 on the interstate. Barely and cars in Florida are killing it, you know, flying by me as I stayed off the interstate. It was loud. The muffler needed work was hot. It didn't have air condition. I finally decided I talked my parents into getting me a new car and I'd been working so I got a new off the lot. 89 Toyota Camry gray Camry, it was very basic. You know the the most basic one but it was a beautiful car. And when we brought the Mustang for a trade in all the dealer guys came around and all the sales were like, oh, man, I want that they're you know, they're fighting over who gets to buy it and take it home. And one of the salesmen comes up to me he's like, did you know that the serial number has been removed with acid? So this, this old guy was totally like, he had bought a stolen car. And so somehow it had been papered. I don't know. 1966 and Florida. I don't know he had the paperwork. And they're like, oh, yeah, we'll take it don't worry. And so my car's been stolen the whole time. But yeah, I do remember, you go cars in the parking lot of my high school iron. Number Two Yugo's, and this one girl drove the Yugo and she parked next to me in the parking lot in a school parking lot. And I remember it was blue is a pretty blue paint job. And she wasn't a bad driver and I got her from A to B and she didn't really care. And one day I came out and kids had picked the car up and turned it perpendicular in her space. Just because they thought it'd be funny to make fun of the girl with the Yugo car.

Aaron Harmon: 45:25

They were not going to pick up the Grand Marquis. No, no. No, right, right. Now we'll take a quick break to hear from one of our sponsors.

Joni Ekstrum: 45:36

Today's startups become tomorrow's growth engines in South Dakota, we're entering a new stage of expansion for our biotech industry, and you want to be part of it. Hi, I'm Tony Johnson, Executive Director of South Dakota biotech, where the state affiliate of the International bio organization and we're proud to be leading a state that's driving innovation to feed, fuel and heal the world. South Dakota biotech is here to inform, to connect, and to advocate for our critical industry. Whether you're directly involved in biotechnology, or looking to learn more about it, we want to hear from you find us at www that SD bio.org. Now back to the show.

Aaron Harmon: 46:17

You know, I was thinking when you were talking about like the relationship we have with, with our cars and how we use them for identity and things like that. Leslie and I are in the healthcare industry. I wonder if anyone gets excited about it. I have this really nice Albuterol inhaler. simulator is so good. I'm a singular kind of guy.

Leslie Cooper: 46:36

Oh, he's like, What do you use?

Jason Vuic: 46:39

Why, you know, I can't even imagine a me the automotive industry is similar, I'm sure of it to medical or but especially pharmaceutical in that it's so rich. And there's so much money, you know, get into a car and look at that damn product, you're in it. I mean, I have a, I have a Highlander SUV. It's two or three years old, we bought it new. And it's beautiful, right? I mean, it's streamlined. It's, you know, everything about it has been focused, grouped and worked on into the, you know, every single problem has been engineered out, you know, these cars, right. And I, you know, with the world automotive industry in the billions, and billions it takes for a new assembly line or a new product line, or, you know, cars are essentially the same decade, they might change the body, but the chassis is no different. They can't afford it. Right, the basic product but, you know, pharmaceutical companies, you know, with billions in the and that they've made but also the billions of pills they've produced. And with the, with the billions of people that have consumed these things, they know, they have the data on how many people have died, how many people have gotten sick count, you know what I mean? Like, it's so many levels of crunching the numbers, the world automotive industry, and I'm sure there's ways to compare it, but I you know, it's just been, you know, it's almost like Darwin, you don't I mean, these companies around the world, imagine how many millions of cars Toyota has sold and examine the data from right it's the same in bills are the same in medical I, you know, it's cars or a mate, you know, you don't see or have many lemons coming out of Toyota anymore? You know, or recalls, like every once in a while, but in general? No, I mean, cars are one of the one of the most amazingly designed things. And that a design guide. I'm not a car guy, but one of the most amazingly designed and produce things that humans have ever done. I mean, it's remarkable now most new cars are just something else. Amazing

Aaron Harmon: 48:55

in our industry, if something goes wrong with your product. There's so many consequences from the recall is yes, the publicity you get lawsuits you're gonna get, but reputation similar similar

Jason Vuic: 49:09

in cars, right? I mean, you know, I, I've never been one to I never really cared that I had a Mustang when I was a kid, you know, I mean, I really just wanted a car that work. But I drive around in my car, and I look at it, I'm like, wow, you know, this is remarkable. The level of engineering, you know, my cars, it's 100. It was 108 degrees yesterday in Fort Worth 108. And I fire that thing up and it could be minus eight or 108 that cars going. First try right. You know, and one thing too about quality with the Japanese is they just annihilated the Americans in the 70s and 80s. I mean, they killed the train just killed it. Partially because the Americans were arrogant and monopolistic and not willing to improve Quality and the workers were fine with huge payment packages. The companies were happy to give them as long as they had full production, but their production was crap. And the Japanese ate our lunch. I mean, that was one thing I learned in the book just just ate our lunch quality wise. And I think we we've learned, well, they

Aaron Harmon: 50:19

had like, a 10 year warranties way before America did for our cars.

Jason Vuic: 50:24

Oh, right. Imagine a 10 year warranty in American cars. What? Right? Yeah, I mean, yeah. I mean, I'm sure your grammar key was alright. But I just quality between, you know, right between my Camry compared to my dad and American car. And he was he was a Marine in Korea, and he never wanted to buy a Japanese car. You know, I call them jab cars. And that thing was such a piece of junk and my camera would come in it would work. It would part you know what I mean? And he was always replacing something. And finally I came home from college and he's got a, he's got a Honda Accord. And he was embarrassed. He was mad. He was really mad today. He he bought Japanese. He was really angry. He was angry at at America. My dad really was that. What the hell is this? Why am I having to do this? You know, I want to buy an American car. But it's a piece of junk, you know? And? Well, right. I mean,

Leslie Cooper: 51:20

I will admit my, my Grand Marquis is still running. And we still have it, the speaker doesn't work real well, like you'll run by the glove compartment. You have to like smack the dash and then the speakers will start working again. But it has the tape player and everything in it. And so my son is going to be 13 in October. So we keep joking with him that I'm going to fix it up, you know, like do a little tune up on it. And that's gonna be his first car. And he's like, No, I can help you.

Jason Vuic: 51:48

I can't believe you have it. What is it? 45 years old. 40 years old

Leslie Cooper: 51:52

and somewhere around there. It's old.

Aaron Harmon: 51:54

Can you get us a photo for the show notes?

Leslie Cooper: 51:56

Oh, I can get a photo. Yeah, I think we can look and see two I think we had a lady that lived on from I think it's like a 60 Something Oldsmobile you know, like the blue ones with the white top that were to bench seats with like, you know, blue quilted cloth on the inside that I can lay down in the back seat. Like it has to be like five and a half feet across.

Jason Vuic: 52:20

My dad had a Bonneville with the lower interior in Florida in the early 80s. It was brutal. You know, I mean, you get in that thing. Imagine sitting under the lure in Florida in August, like ah, it was just stupid, just stupid. You know, and it broke down. It was a piece of giant to this day when I see a Pontiac I'm like, good for you, dude. That's my least favorite. God my least I'm glad it's gone. Go go far away. I just I had very little respect for Detroit, you know, in their failures of quality control and their their utter failures of the quality of their cars during the 1980s. You know it? It made me mad writing that you go about doing the research like the world is your oyster and you just very arrogant about it and you pissed it away and in my opinion.

Aaron Harmon: 53:12

Yeah. Jim Collins has a book called How the mighty fall. Yeah, that that fall starts with ego.

Jason Vuic: 53:19

Yeah, right. I mean, oh, yeah.

Aaron Harmon: 53:23

Well, thank you, Jason, for being on here. Sure. Sure. We hope you enjoyed this episode and are excited to bring you more stay tuned.

Leslie Cooper: 53:31

This episode of Inside Out quality was brought to you thanks to South Dakota biotech Association. If you have a story you'd like us to explore and share. We'd love to hear from you. Submit your ideas by visiting www.sd bio.org

Aaron Harmon: 53:46

You've made it this far in the episode. Thanks for listening