A Year-End Review: Tying Up Some of the Loose Ends From ’84 : A Wild and Crazy Car

Miroslav Kefurt, an expatriate Czech, came to last year’s AutoExpo at the Los Angeles Convention Center in May with a wild and crazy car that seemed to make sense.

It was the pint-sized, slab-sided Yugo 45. Interiors were a Spartan tartan that didn’t match body colors. Made in Yugoslavia, the sedans showed a decade-old body design around a Fiat engine that has been in production for 27 years.

Kefurt told the credulous and curious that the Yugo 45 will come with a 10-year or 100,000-mile warranty, parts and labor. With a venerable four-cylinder power plant, simplicity of style and engineering and an estimated mechanical life of 15 years, he added, this no-frills commuter car would sell for $4,500--the most inexpensive car on the American market.

That brought several hundred potential buyers and dealers to Kefurt’s door. It also attracted Malcolm Bricklin of New York, the entrepreneur who went bankrupt in 1975 after the New Brunswick government had invested $30 million in production of the Bricklin SV1 sports car.

But this time, said a spokesman for Bricklin Industries, a Bricklin automotive adventure will flourish. The company has agreed to pay $50,000 for Kefurt’s franchise. Negotiations with the Yugoslav government (with Occidental Petroleum opening the trading doors) have produced an agreement to import 35,000 Yugos (now the Yugo 55 as an indicator of upgraded horsepower) during the first year of sales.

“We expect the first cars on the boat in April and at dealerships by the first of May,” said Bricklin spokesman Jonas Halperin. “We’re offering a quality car for the mass consumer and already we’ve received 2,800 letters of inquiry from the private sector . . . inquiries from 523 dealers nationally . . . and we’ve dropped the suggested retail price of the car to $3,999.”