Would you go to great lengths to buy today's Yugo GV? It's claimed to be a daily driver, but does its price also make it the daily deal?

What do bug-shaped Subarus, Canadian fiberglass, the death throes of Fiat in America (for a while at least) and Chinese electric bicycles all have in common? If you said huckster automotive entrepreneur Malcolm Bricklin, then you would be right.

Bricklin also was responsible for bringing to America the Fuji Rabbit motor scooter, which wasn't all that mean, and the subject of today's consideration, a 1987 edition of the Kragujevac Serbia-built Zastava Koral, better known to those of us in the West as the Yugo.

The funny thing is, it wasn't originally Bricklin's idea to bring the Yugo to America. That was the brainstorm of someone named Miro Kefurt who inked a deal with Zastava to build cars for the California market, and who introduced the model at the 1984 Greater Los Angeles Auto Show. I remember this, I was at that show.

Unfortunately for Kefurt (who must have had a fun time in middle school owing to that name) the cars were not ready for prime time, having failed the California Air Research Board's emission tests at the same time they were being introduced in the state. Bricklin swooped in and bought up the import rights from Kefurt and set to improving the Yugo for sale nation-wide.

Considering the Yugo's reputation you might think that not much was done in the attempt to make the car a success here in the States. In fact, they were comprehensively modified for emissions and safety standards, and were built on a separate assembly line by hand-picked workers who were paid higher wages to not make the car totally suck.

Unfortunately suck it did, and issues with unreliable emissions hardware ultimately drained the importer's finances. The Yugo was finally pulled from the U.S. market in 1992 as U.S. war sanctions on Yugoslavia dried up Zastava's parts supplies. The cars would go on however to enjoy a successful second career as the butt of jokes.

The seller of this (for Good Value) apparently isn't joking when he says this car is capable of doing daily driver duty. There is no word in the ad regarding how it performs at night however.

The car is white over sad, and comes with only 88,000 miles on the clock. This being the entry-level GV I'm pretty sure that it doesn't actually have a clock, but that's how we car folk describe mileage these days.

The exterior seems reasonable, with only the area around the driver's side headlamp evidencing what looks like rust, or dirt, or a place where the painter in the factory simply decided he'd had enough of this car.

On to the interior, which is filled with the kind of materials that appear to be of the same quality as North Korean toilet paper. At least it's all there and there don't appear to be any major rips or tears in anything. It even has working A/C which is quite amazing. Putting A/C on the Yugo's 55-horse 1.1-litre four is in my mind akin to gluing the car to the street, but I guess it works here okay. The ad also notes a few new kibbles and bits that have kept the car from leading a sedentary life.

All that comes together in one Yugo, now priced at $2,999, which is just a grand less than its 1987 price when new. Yay, time! Based on the ad, and the fact that despite their legacy as late-night joke fodder you've always thought these cars were all kinds of kitschy cool, what do you think about this one at that price?

Does this '87 Yugo seem like it might be worth $2,999? Or, at that price, is this a Yugo that won't soon be Yu-gone?

You decide!

Charlotte , or go if the ad disappears.

H/T to Kurt for the hookup!

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