This book made me laugh out loud. But then, I’m a car nut, and a business nut, and a global perspective nut. Plus I visited Yugoslavia in 1979, so I had a taste of what the author was talking about when he describes the place.

The Yugo: The Rise and Fall of the Worst Car in History combines all of those things. If you ever drove a Yugo, or worse actually owned one, and you lived to tell about it, then you’ll relate to the descriptions of the poor craftsmanship that went into the car. Actually, using the word craftsmanship is overstating it. The Yugo was a piece of junk.

Jason Vuic tells the story of not only the car itself, but of all the financiers, promoters, businesses, communist master planners, political heavyweights and the rest of the menagerie that brought the car to America. And what a story it is. Where else do you combine Henry Kissinger with the Savings & Loans meltdown with automobile imports and junk bonds? Malcolm Bricklin, the man behind the Yugo, takes center stage and kept me laughing the whole time. What a promoter he was! There were times I laughed out loud. And other times I wanted to shout, “No, don’t do that…you’ll regret it!”

As I said, a fun book. Well worth reading.