There is a long history of taking two cars and gluing them together, a practice that has produced everything from the Roadkill Nascarlo to Morris Minors disguised as Priuses. However, a unibody swap in particular is a wildly difficult procedure that is easy to get in over your head on. The result of one such attempt is now listed on Facebook Marketplace for $1,000, and it looks less than the sum of its parts.
You do not have to know about cars to have a vague concept of what a Yugo is. It is the $3,990 car that inspired a thousand jokes, an inexpensive Fiat 128-based Yugoslavian subcompact that caught the attention of Armie Hammer’s great-grandad before eventually being imported to America by the man behind the Bricklin SV-1. Sales of this slow but affordable machine peaked at 48,812 units in 1987 before a rapid decline. Thanks partly to an emissions scandal, partly to conflict, and partly to UN sanctions on Yugoslavia, the Yugo was done in America by 1992. Just in time for the demise of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia itself.
Related: Father Relishes Son’s First Word Car
On the flipside, you do need to know a little bit about cars to understand the Triumph TR7. More than just a sports car shaped like a wedge of cheese, it was a British-made machine launched in January 1975. Now, early 1975 was not exactly the finest time for the motor industry. In America, new emissions and safety regulations strangled big blocks, raised the ride height of sports cars, and tacked enormous five MPH bumpers onto either end of anything that moved. In Britain, tensions ran particularly high between workers and management at British Leyland, and due to a variety of economic issues, the automaker that owned Triumph was teetering on the verge of collapse when the TR7 launched. Perhaps that is why it had a rather poor reputation for quality, even though some people still like the car for inexplicable reasons.
A structural nightmare
What you are looking at here is a two-liter eight-valve single-overhead-cam slant-four in all its glory. Barely cresting the triple-digit mark when it comes to horsepower, it nevertheless represents a substantial upgrade over the mid-double-digits a stock Yugo made. Of course, it is still attached to the underside of a Triumph TR7, but that bit of white cowling hanging over the engine is a hint of exactly what is going on here.
Whew, that is rough as old boots. While the wheelbases of a Yugo GV and a Triumph TR7 are only four-tenths of an inch apart, there is a lot more to a body swap than just lining up the wheels in the arches. This Yugo looks like a monster truck because the bottom of its sills are sitting well above the floorpan of the TR7. Why? The next shot should make this abundantly clear.
Related: 1996 Volvo 850 vs 1998 Mitsubishi Galant: Value Comparison
Ah, yes, it appears the builder of this chimera simply sliced off the TR7 floorpan behind the rear wheels and mounted the Yugo body atop whatever was left via points like the rear valence. A body swap normally involves countless hours of cutting, welding, and massaging sheet metal to get two unrelated cars to merge like a zipper, yet this one takes a top hat approach.
The amount of air between the TR7 sills and the Yugo sills is especially apparent in this shot, which seems especially disconcerting for a number of reasons. Firstly, that is a whole lot of camber for a MacPherson strut front suspension. Secondly, how exactly is the Yugo body actually attached to the guts of the TR7?
A quick gander at the seats and rear interior does not turn up many clues. Not only does a bit of Yugo sheetmetal appear to overlap the TR7 seat itself, but I do not see any substantial welds clearly holding everything together.
Related: The Hidden Crisis Every Mazda Owner Must Know: Why Finding Quality Parts Could Save Your Investment
Perhaps the most cursed thing about this entire creation, however, is the dashboard, which appears to feature the Yugo’s entire dash structure perched atop the TR7’s dash structure. Look, you can even see the TR7 wiper spindles. This is, to use an industry-standard technical term, a clusterfuck. Really, what remains of the Yugo shell ought to be sectioned back to pretty much the base of the windscreen in order to get everything to sit more or less correctly. This means carefully slicing away at the cowl, the wheel wells, and what remains of the Yugo floor. Not to mention deleting what is left of the TR7 spare tire well and trimming what is left of the rear frame rails.
It is theoretically possible to make this merging of two much maligned vehicles work. The wheelbases are close enough, and all-metal box flares can cover many sins, but it will require a great deal more time and effort than what has been spent here. Someone could take on this project, but they will have to be an absolute masochist to see it to fruition. For now, what we have here is a proper horror show of a car.
