[Redux] You Go, You Go, Yugo
Remembering Yugoslavia the podcast is FIVE years old! In celebration of our 5th birthday, here’s a revised and remastered version of the podcast’s inaugural episode.
There’s a company in Zagreb that rents and gives tours in Yugo cars. Let’s go for a ride!
With Antonija Buntak (Yugocar Adventure) and Božo the Red Yugo. Birthday song by Ekrem Jevrić and Svega City.
Listen: “[Redux] You Go, You Go, Yugo” (Episode #114)
Bonus Extras: “[Redux] You Go, You Go, Yugo” (Episode #114)
Ad-free version of “[Redux] You Go, You Go, Yugo” (Episode #114).
Transcript: “[Redux] You Go, You Go, Yugo” (Episode #114)
Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
[SOUNDBITE]
[JINGLE]
[SOUNDBITE – “Sretan Rodjendan” by Ekrem Jevrić and Svega City]
PETER KORCHNAK: Remembering Yugoslavia the podcast is five years old!
One hundred episodes, many of them extended plus a few bonus ones; nearly 100 hours of footage featuring 200 guests. Five-star ratings on Spotify, Apple, and other platforms; and Listen Notes ranking Remembering Yugoslavia’s popularity in the top 2 percent among 3.5 million podcasts in the world.
Most importantly, a ton of listeners’ messages about what the show means to them. Here’s the most recent one, from a Yugoblok member:
“I am originally from…our beautiful Yugoslavia, and still feel proud of my heritage and connection to that country. [It] may not exist on the map, but it exists in many hearts and minds, amongst the people living there and the diaspora like me. I think our world today needs much more of what Yugoslavia stands for and defends.”
When I launched the podcast in July of 2020, it never occurred to me I’d still be here five years later—and not stopping any time soon.
Things got so good that a year ago, around the fourth anniversary, I brought the podcast under the umbrella of Yugoblok, a member-supported global community and information hub for all who remember Yugoslavia. Through their membership contributions, these good people—YOU—keep this podcast going and make it (and a whole lot more) accessible and freely available to everyone. Becoming a member, at Yugoblok.com/Join/, would be the best birthday present you could give. Your presence indeed is the present.
For our itty bitty but huge birthday, I’m bringing you two special treats. Okay three. At the top you heard the cover version, by the band Svega City, of a birthday song the late Ekrem Jevrić sings drunkenly into a cask. “Play the song, so everyone knows, that we’re celebrating a birthday,” he sings. “May life be like the best dream for you, I wish you happy birthday from the bottom of my heart.”
Then, here and now shortly, I bring you a redux version of the most popular episode of the podcast, which is in fact the very first one, “You Go, You Go, Yugo.” It’s an interview with a founder of a company that rents and gives tours in Yugo cars, in Zagreb. Nowadays the episode might fall into the Inspired by Yugoslavia segment on the show.
You know those photos where people today recreate a photo from their past? Same poses, same clothes, but the people are more mature, and it’s a little bit nostalgic and funny and a lot of fun.
I’ve learned a lot making the podcast and I’ve developed my style over time. Listening to that inaugural episode feels like a blast from the past, I was so wet behind the ears and naive. So, with the benefit of accumulated experience, I’ve recut the episode, with some parts re-recorded and others removed, to fit Remembering Yugoslavia of today. The same story, just much shorter, a bit more mature, and definitely a lot of fun.
Enjoy.
[SOUNDBITE]
[JINGLE]
PETER KORCHNAK: This is Remembering Yugoslavia, a Yugoblok show exploring the memory of a country that no longer exists. I’m your mechanic, Peter Korchnak.
ANTONIJA BUNTAK: OK, so it’s a Yugo car, named after Jugo wind, not after Yugoslavia…
PETER KORCHNAK: Our driver today is Antonija Buntak, a Zagreb-based tour guide and founder of Yugocar Adventure, a company that rents and gives tours in Yugo cars.
I joined Buntak in one of her three Yugos, the red one named Božo, for a drive around town. I’d never ridden in a Yugo before, so I felt like a little boy again. By the way Buntak couldn’t say why she named the red Yugo Božo, but I imagined that the name, which is actually short for Božidar, came from the root of the word obožavati, to worship.
Yugo may not be named after Yugoslavia, but it was quite auspicious that I’d begin this podcast’s journey in a car that symbolizes that lost country to so many to this day.
ANTONIJA BUNTAK: Actually it was a trend in the 80s to name the car after winds, like Golf and Passat, so this is when our government got an idea to create a little car for Yugoslavia and to name it after a wind, which is Jugo wind, which means “southern wind”.
PETER KORCHNAK: Yugo the wind is a warm, humid wind that comes from the east or southeast, bringing with it the weather called južina.
It’s melancholic, it makes people uncomfortable, it makes your hair a mess and, as one Croat described it to me, it makes you either want to sleep or to kill somebody.
In the medieval Dubrovnik Republic, people who committed crimes under the influence of the jugo wind received more lenient sentences.
Yugo the car—
ANTONIJA BUNTAK: The first one was produced in 1978 and presented to Tito, who was the leader of Yugoslavia. Allegedly, Tito didn’t like it that much. However, after he died in the 80s, the mass production of this car started. In total there were 800,000 Yugos produced between the beginning of 80s and 2008, when the last Yugo was produced in a factory in Serbia.
PETER KORCHNAK: Though it was named after a southern wind, the Yugo was truly a Yugoslav car, with parts made in all the former republics. Assembly was done at the Zastava factory in Kragujevac, in today’s Serbia.
ANTONIJA BUNTAK: And out of those almost 800 000, 145,000 were sold in the U.S. It turned out to be [a] funny and failed idea to sell the Yugo car to the U.S. However, this is what brought Yugo to its fame and glory and now it’s one of the best known cars in history.
PETER KORCHNAK: Nearly one in five Yugo cars was sold in the United States.
Yugo, adapted for the American market, parked in the bottom of the market in the summer of 1985. Marketed chiefly on its low low price, it became an instant sensation. Yugomania gripped the U.S. for a hot minute until a bad review in a prestigious magazine emptied Yugo’s tiny tank. The utilitarian car, which I’ve heard described as a washing machine on wheels or as a 60s Italian design with a 70s Yugoslav build, just couldn’t compete in the 80s America. In a span of just a couple of years, the Yugo went from fad to farce, and it eventually ended up embedded in popular memory, unfairly I might say, as the worst car in history.
But—
ANTONIJA BUNTAK: If we didn’t have that idea of selling the cars to Americans, Yugo probably would be forgotten and this way it will never be forgotten, it became a legend.
PETER KORCHNAK: Buntak has three Yugos. In addition to Božo the Red from 1987, there is Žuti the Yellow and Zagi the Blue, named for the mascot of the 1987 Univerziade that took place in Zagreb, whose brand color is blue.
The idea for Yugocar Adventure had three sources as well.
ANTONIJA BUNTAK: Yugo was my first car, this is when I learned how to drive, on a Yugo— my dad actually taught me— so it’s my first car, I had a lot of adventures with my Yugos back when I was 18 and 19 years old. All my friends have a story, “You know that one time when we were seniors in high school, when we drove around in your Yugo…” and absolutely everyone in ex-Yugoslavia that got a driving license back— what, some 15, 20 years ago or more— have a similar story, a crazy adventure in a Yugo.
PETER KORCHNAK: In fact, there were two Yugos in the Buntak family.
ANTONIJA BUNTAK: My dad had it and I drove my dad’s and then my brother bought one as well, but I preferred my dad’s and after getting my driving license I drove around with my dad in my Yugo and I loved it and I have so many memories, from crashing it into— I crashed, which was terrible, I was 18— and I crashed into… It was a Citroen parked on the other side of the street of probably the widest street in Zagreb. I managed to back it so far that I crashed the whole car. Yugo didn’t have one single scratch and that Citroen was completely destroyed.
Yeah, I have a lot of stories from high school as we were driving around and trying to make Yugo go over 100 kilometers per hour which is— what— 69 miles per hour, and it did, so, that was the big, the big deal for my old Yugo.
So, yeah, yeah, I have a lot of those nice memories from Yugo and no, we don’t own them anymore.
PETER KORCHNAK: Another classic socialist vehicle provided further inspiration. I mean, how could it not.
ANTONIJA BUNTAK: I went to Armenia a couple of years ago and I rented a Lada Niva, which is a Soviet car, and I was so excited because my whole life I wanted to drive a Lada Niva. I didn’t sleep at all the night before and as soon as I sat in the car I drove through the red light and later I got a ticket for doing so and then I figured ‘Wait just a second! So if I was so excited about Lada Niva, then there must be some lunatics in this world that would be the same excited about Yugo car.’
And then I studied a little bit and figured out that in absolutely every country you have old cars that will take you for tours. You have old American cars in Havana, Cuba; you have Trabants in Berlin; you have Mini Coopers in London. So, you have it absolutely everywhere, and we didn’t have it in Zagreb, and me being a guide, I sort of connected the dots.
[SOUNDBITE]
PETER KORCHNAK: Buntak launched Yugocar Adventure in the summer of 2018. Early publicity helped get the business in high gear.
ANTONIJA BUNTAK: It started as a hobby; it started as a project, a passion project, but it’s still not the main one, I still work as a guide.
So far everybody loves the story so much, a lot of it is promoted by the word of mouth— so people hear about it, recommend it to someone else, recommend it—
A lot of Croatians like it, which I never even thought of Croatians when I started with the whole project. The thing that I had in my mind being a guide were mainly Americans, were mainly foreigners, but then it seems that it’s a big hit on Croatia because, as I said, everybody has a story, everybody wants to hear the sound of a Yugo, everybody wants to smell a Yugo. I have to print the gift certificates because a lot of wives buy to their husbands as birthday presents.
PETER KORCHNAK: Smell a Yugo – what do you mean by that?
ANTONIJA BUNTAK: Well, Yugo has this very distinct smell that I like to call “the smell of Yugoslavia” which is basically cheap fabric, leaking gasoline and cheap plastic all blend[ed] into one.
PETER KORCHNAK: Buntak says the ratio of Croats to foreigners among her customers is about 60 to 40.
ANTONIJA BUNTAK: Croatians heard about it because it was all over the news. It was, “There is some crazy person in Zagreb that has three Yugos and rents it out to tourists.” So it was very popular and still, I mean, is and I still every now and then I have to give out an interview about it and Croatians read about it and— this is how Croatians hear about it.
PETER KORCHNAK: There’s riding in a vintage, 1980s car—by the way, I can’t even believe I’m saying “vintage” for the 80s—and there’s riding in a car made in a country that doesn’t exist anymore.
ANTONIJA BUNTAK: Now in the world there is a big retro trend, now everybody wants to be from the 80s, now even here in Zagreb we have The Museum of 80s.
You have sweets in Croatia, or Cedevita, which is this energy drink,, it’s like a powder and it’s like an energy drink, so we like those old cans and old wrappings of candies and so on. All of those now have the new, modern twist of old 80s wrapping and so on, which is really funny. So, there is a comeback of retro.
This nostalgia about 30 years ago when we were younger is a really big deal.
When I’m driving around, because I, personally I drive them a lot, they are my cars that I use as my transportation, people which are either left or right-oriented and it doesn’t really matter, even they are against Yugoslavia, against communism, against all of that, they have a huge smile on their faces when they see a Yugo, so they never want to destroy it.
So I have to say that Yugo from the point of view of the locals sort of rose above this communism and that part of its legacy. People are really distinguishing Yugoslavia from the car.
PETER KORCHNAK: For the locals, if the car isn’t Yugoslavia, it’s the 80s and it’s their youth. For the outsiders, it’s still the worst car in history and it’s quirky and hilarious.
ANTONIJA BUNTAK: Yugos are very popular cars, very funny cars and people like to make fun of it, but I have to say that no one ever makes fun of my Yugos. When they sit in a Yugo they are so amazed, they love it so much yeah, coming back to the thirty years ago when people were just younger.
Not a lot foreigners connect it with the former system, former Yugoslavia. They connect it with being the worst car in history and with all those jokes.
So it’s just a car that everybody thinks it’s cute, it’s funny, and they just want to try to drive it and to be driven in it.
And regarding what amount of history the foreigners are taught in a Yugo, well it depends whether they rent it or they have a guided tour. If they have a guided tour, they have a professional guide that takes them around which is either myself or one or two of my colleagues.
So they learn a lot about history, they learn a lot about sights, but I have to say that I’m not focusing only on 20th century history but the whole history of Croatia.
PETER KORCHNAK: As for people who rent the Yugos to drive around themselves.
ANTONIJA BUNTAK: The cars are insured, of course, so I have insurance, but you would have to see how people drive those cars. Those cars are taken care of more than any Lamborghinis. So, they are taken care of more than the most expensive cars in the world because the people that rent it, they rent it because they really want to experience it and they know that they are— these are old-timer cars and they are taking excellent care of them, so I’ve never had, so far we haven’t had one single accident or problem with it, never.
PETER KORCHNAK: Quite the opposite. Buntak could fill a trunk full of Yugocar Adventure stories.
ANTONIJA BUNTAK: I had one young gentleman whose father actually worked in the factory that produced— I mean, Yugo cars were made in Serbia, right, in Kragujevac, but they had different parts from all the different parts from Yugoslavia, and the plastic were from Croatia— and his father worked in the plastic factory and he actually had the original keychain from original Yugo which was 35 years old. And he cried. When he saw the car he actually cried. It was a gift from his girlfriend, she also gave it to him, the renting a Yugo, for his birthday and I met with them in the garage to give them the keys and so on. He didn’t know what he’s getting and when he saw the car and when I gave him the car keys, he literally cried. So, this was maybe, this was the best thing, yeah, it was hilarious; and they drove around, so they rented it for 4 hours and I said: “Yeah, I don’t care, you can just bring it back whenever you want.”
When I see the real enthusiasts this is what I like, and this is the whole point of my company. It might be earning money but it’s not in the money. The thing is that when I see how much joy it brings to people – why not? Rent it, drive it, love it.
PETER KORCHNAK: Still, I wonder about any negative reactions to using a symbol of Yugoslavia for business, as retro as it may be.
ANTONIJA: I have to say that I haven’t seen any negative reactions. I was once stopped by a police officer because, he just wanted to see [the] car from close by [sic], which was hilarious ‘cause I had clients in the car, I had the couple from the US, and I was like ”No, now they will ask for the documents” which of course I have, everything is fine, but it’s a hassle. And no, he just smiled and he’s, “oh, I just wanted to know how old the car is”.
I am being stopped with people driving brand new BMWs because they just wanted to know how old the cars are. And I have absolutely no negative reactions.
Once, the [sic] internet troll, after one of the interviews, wrote down that I have red hair, which I don’t, I have brown hair, and that I must be a communist. This was the only thing that I read that could qualify as the negative one.
I’m always trying to emphasize that this is not a political movement or anything. My focus is not Yugoslavia. This is just about the car and I’m trying to lift the car even more above the politics.
[SOUNDBITE]
ANTONIJA: Where do I see Yugocar Adventure in ten years? I have absolutely no idea. I don’t know what I’m going to do the next year. I’ll just buy a Škoda or something and travel to Czech [sic]…I don’t know.
[BACKGROUND SOUND]
PETER KORCHNAK: Over the course of my travels across the region, the Yugo has become part of the landscape. I almost stop seeing the little car in its many iterations. But every once in a while I spot one out in the Croatian or Kosovan rural wild or some custom trim or within some nice composition and I stop for a snap.
Around Kragujevac, Serbia, where the car used to be manufactured, there are so many Yugos on the road I wish I had a clicker to count them all.
And the Zastava factory halls where all those Yugos were made stand abandoned on the banks of the Lepenica river…while the legend lives on.
[OUTRO MUSIC – “Jugoslavijo / Od Vardara pa do Triglava” by Horn Orchestra]
PETER KORCHNAK: That’s all for this birthday redux episode of Remembering Yugoslavia, thank you for listening and riding along.
All guests’ opinions expressed are solely their own; unless otherwise noted they do not express, reflect, or represent the views or opinions of any third party, including myself.
Find additional information, sources, embeds, links, photos, and the transcript of this episode at Yugoblok.com/RememberingYugoslavia.
And while you’re there, join Yugoblok as a member and travel along in a growing community of post-Yugoslavs, yugodiasporans, and yugophiles.
Outro music courtesy of Robert Petrić. Transcript by Zorica Popović. Birthday song by Ekrem Jevrić and Svega City. Special thanks to Heather Van Valkenburg.
I am Peter Korchňak.
Bok!
[SOUNDBITE]