• VSL, Wall Street Journal, Thursday, March 4, 2010 10:57 AM

Jason Vuic's The Yugo: The Rise and Fall of the Worst Car in History details the story of the inexpensive hatchback from Yugoslavia that failed spectacularly because, well, it was a stupefyingly horrible product. In the reasoned words of the author, an assistant professor of modern European history at Bridgewater College in Virginia, the 1980s import was "a turkey, a lemon, a dud, a failure, a blunder, a boondoggle, and a bust."

The book, writes VSL's anonymous reviewer, is "about salesmanship, hubris, greed, stupidity and the extraordinary dealings of an American capitalist." That would be Malcolm Bricklin, a colorful if delusional businessman who also brought us the gull-winged sports eponymously dubbed the Bricklin. It had no door locks because of a supplier mix-up, recalls Dick Teresi, reviewing in the Wall Street Journal.

"Along the way Vuic generously sprinkles Yugo jokes, such as: What's included in every Yugo owner's manual? A bus schedule," Teresi writes. He also observes that the author is "as hard on the Western capitalism that fleetingly embraced the car as he is on the socialist system that produced it."

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