Six months after its American introduction in 1985, the Yugo was a punch line; within a year, it was a staple of late-night comedy. By 2000, NPRs Car Talk declared it the worst car of the millennium. And for most Americans thats where the story begins and ends. Hardly. The short, unhappy life of the car, the men who built it, the men who imported it, and the decade that embraced and discarded it is rollicking and astounding, and one of the greatest untold business-cum-morality tales of the 1980s. Mix one rabid entrepreneur, several thousand good communists, a willing U. S. State Department, the shortsighted Detroit auto industry, and improvident bankers, shake vigorously, and youve got The Yugo: The Rise and Fall of the Worst Car in History.