Car & Driver Yugo GV road test.
Here are some quotes from the 1986 road test of the Yugo GV, notice that they don't quite seem to be relevant with the actual hard data of the car, and Tony Assenza must've had his head up his Assenza when he wrote most of this (but not so much as Csaba Csere)
"Damn the test drive, Martha. This sucker is cheap!"
"Driving the boxy little front-driver is about as much fun as driving your couch."
"For big city dwellers who play the daily creative parking game, this car is hard to beat."
"The plastic that covers the dash is a constant reminder that petrochemical products do indeed come from decomposed dinosaurs."
"A recon mission under the hood reveals the Yugo's international origins. Packard electrical connections are in evidence. Bosch is represented by the ignition coil and the distributor. Lancia makes it's contribution in the form of the oil filter."
"The absence of a tachometer makes it hard to know when to upshift, so Yugo has built in a Pavlonian method of acoustic negative reinforcement. Bring the engine up to somewhere near where the redline should be and it sets up a deafening, resonant drone drone that tells you to shift before you damage something."
"Do-it-yourselfers will find the engine easy to work on. The spark plugs, the oil and fuel filters, the distributor, and most most major components are very accessible. The Yugo looks like an ideal training ground for shade-tree mechanics."
"The shift mechanism feels as if it was designed by Cap'n Crunch."
"Once underway, the Yugo feels lively enough if you don't mind the background noise of keeping the little engine on the cam."- Tony Assenza.
"One thing about the GV: you never have to wonder how Yugo saves you money; all the missing items are right there in every other car around you."-Larry Griffin
"It's obvious to me that the Yugo GV is inferior to every other car sold in America."-Csaba Csere, who obviously didn't bother to actually read the article (this is the counterpoint) and pulled his opinions out of his ass.
So how did the Yugo actually do durig the test? let's take a look at the results:
Acceleration:
0-60 in 14.0 seconds
1/4 mile in 19.5 seconds (actually faster than Yugo claimed)
Top Speed: 86mph@5250rpm
Braking 70-0 in 202 feet.
Brake fade: moderate
Interior:
General comfort: GOOD
Now Csaba really thinks that the Yugo is inferior in every way to every other car being sold in the U.S. during 1986, what he obviously failed to see is that the Yugo brakes faster than all of it's competition including the Honda Civic priced over $3000 more, and that it's acceleration is better than it's chief competitor the $2000 more expensive Hyundai Excel. Never mind those "extras" you'd have to pay more for in other cars, like the rear window wiper which was a no-cost "standard option" or the locking gas cap.
At least Tony was able to get his feelings out with some humour, but Csaba is still an old fart.
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