Small but Persistent Group Protests Yugoslavian-Made Car
A small but persistent band of protesters has added an additional charge to the bad reviews that have dogged the Yugo car since U.S. sales of the low-priced import began 18 months ago.
Picketers at a North Hollywood car dealership on Sunday said the Yugo--which automotive writers have criticized as unreliable, uncomfortable and unsafe--is also the only communist-made car sold in America.
Passers-by and prospective car buyers at the Crossroads Chevrolet and Mazda dealership were advised to “Buy American cars, not communist junk,” according to a sign carried by one of about a dozen people who were protesting the sale of the Yugoslavian-made auto there. Members of the group staging the protest said they will picket the dealership every weekend until it stops selling the Yugo.
“The sale of Yugos supports the communist government of Yugoslavia,” said Nikola Jurisic, a spokesman for the Croatian National Congress, which staged the demonstration. The group has organized weekly protests at Yugo dealerships in San Francisco, Chicago and Detroit over the past five months because “Yugoslavia has denied the Croatian nation its basic human right of self-determination,” he said.
The Yugo is manufactured by the Red Flag Co., owned by the Yugoslavian government.
The Croatian National Congress, which Jurisic said has approximately 5,000 members worldwide, supports the establishment of an independent state of Croatia. The present country of Yugoslavia, formed in 1918, contains several ethnic groups--including Albanians, Serbs, Croats, Montenegrins and Slovenes--some of whom have been at odds for centuries.
In addition to weekly demonstrations, the Croatian protest group has accused the Yugoslavian government of “dumping” the car--selling it in the United States for less than its cost. The group has requested authorities in 16 states, including California, to investigate the validity of the car’s $3,990 advertised price.
Members of the group have distributed about 150,000 flyers protesting the Yugo at auto shows in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit, St. Louis, Chicago and Toronto over the past three months, Jurisic said.
Another 2,000 flyers were distributed by group members at an exhibition volleyball game between the People’s Republic of China and the United States at the University of California, Irvine earlier this month. Yugo is a sponsor of the U.S. Volleyball Association.
The presence of anti-communist protesters has created an additional obstacle in Yugo’s uphill struggle for a foothold in the U.S. car market. The car has been criticized by several automotive and consumer magazines, as well as the respected J.D. Power & Associ1635018099which concluded after a survey of Yugo owners and their problems last year that the Yugo “is the worst car in America.”
Fran Jacobs, vice president of public relations for Yugo of America, of Upper Saddle River, N.J., concedes that the Yugo has had plenty of bad reviews for mechanical and performance problems. She said one reason was because “it’s hard for automotive editors to get out of top-priced cars into low-priced cars and still keep their equanimity.”
“It’s a great car,” Jacobs said. “People who could only afford a used car before, now can buy a new car with a new-car warranty.”
The car is priced about $1,000 less than any other new car sold in the United States.
Jacobs said the firm has no comment on the ideologically-based charges by the Croatian group.
No Effect on Sales Seen
“They have freedom of speech, just as others are free to conduct business in a reasonable manner,” Jacobs said. “Occasionally they do make some negative statements about the Yugo, some of which are not valid. But we don’t believe that the group has had an effect on sales.”
More than 45,000 Yugos have been sold since its introduction to U.S. consumers in August, 1985, Jacobs said. The number of dealers nationwide has increased from 170 to more than 270 during the same period, she said.
But two dealerships which had been the target of Croatian protesters in recent months have stopped selling Yugos. Managers for both dealerships, one in Woodland Hills and another in San Francisco, said the decision to cancel their Yugo franchise was not related to the protesters.
Didn’t Mix With Ferraris
“We gave up the line because this area is really very affluent and it was a strange mix selling $110,000 Ferraris along with $4,000 Yugos,” said Kirby Weatherly, general manager of Ogner Porsche-Audi, a Ferrari and Porsche-Audi dealership in Woodland Hills. “The Yugo has really taken a bad rap, but it’s a good car that is basically worth the money.”
Yugos were also dropped by the Ron Greenspan Volkswagen dealership in San Francisco, which had a franchise for about a year.
“We decided about a week ago to get rid of the Yugos,” said Glen Safholm, the dealership’s general manager. “Sales just haven’t been high enough . . . It had nothing to do with the picketers, who were only one or two guys that would come on Sunday for a couple of hours.”
In Cupertino, Calif., the owners of Key Chevrolet filed a lawsuit last fall against the Croatian National Congress and tried unsuccessfully to get a judge to issue an order barring the group from picketing the dealership.
Pursuing Lawsuit
“We recognized their right to free speech but we wanted them to stop harassing customers and blocking traffic,” said Marcus Gunkel, the dealer’s attorney. Gunkel said that Key Chevrolet still plans to pursue a claim for damages against the Croatian group, although he conceded, “it’s going to be hard to find a customer who didn’t buy a Yugo because the pickets were there.”
Gunkel, who was assigned the case by his law firm in part because of his undergraduate study of Yugoslavian history at Stanford, said the dispute over the sale of the Yugo is “literally the newest vehicle for exerting traditional rivalries between Croats and Serbs.
“These disputes have been around for hundreds of years.”
General manager Bob Slack predicted the pickets will have little effect on Yugo sales at Crossroads Chevrolet. Still, Slack said, “any time you have pickets walking around your store, it’s going to cause some kind of interference.”
Slack said his company has no plans to drop the Yugo.
Fills Need in Market
“The Yugo really fills a slot in the market for us,” Slack said. “You can get out the door with one for about $4,800--that’s tax, license, everything. The closest thing is about $1,000 more, and when you get down to a $5,000 car, another $1,000 is a lot of money for the people in that price range.”
Paul Peric, 64, of Los Angeles, who emigrated from Yugoslavia to the United States in 1951, said he and other members of the Croatian National Congress had been picketing Ogner Porsche-Audi nearly every weekend from September until the dealership announced its decision to drop the Yugo in December.
He said he will now spend a few hours each weekend at Crossroads.
“We’re only doing what we think is right,” he said.
