But I was unprepared for the panoply of problems that came abouteverything from a latent short or current leak, that would kill the car and prevent starting without warning (to restart, the only way was to pull the battery terminal to let whatever relay was behind it, reset) to binding heater-control cables. They sold boatloads of them in Europe to price buyers, taxi companies, retired folk etc. Dealers there are order-takers. Regarding the rust: It was a myriad of factors. After 330,000km with two Yugos, I must be destined to eternal vacation on BOra-Bora . The result is that the UK Yugo was a far superior car to the US one, with its dealership network out to make a quick buck. Make and modelMake and yearYearCategoryImportance/RoleDate added (new ones first)EpisodeAppearance (ep.+time, if avail. Its well nigh impossible to understand the Yugo episode without understanding the guiding hand behind what is generally considered to be the worst car ever offered for sale in the U.S. Malcom Bricklin had been knocking around the car industry for over a quarter century when he spotted a Yugo 45 on a London street in 1984. They found slipshod handling of stamped body panels, and the assembly lines using dirty, even dented panels; he found painting in dusty areas, not the clean, dust-free booths required for good paint covering and adhesion. This was not a design fault, but like the Corvair, the company seriously underestimated the ability of the American motorist to neglect even basic maintenence. Trouble for him was, the rest of America wasnt interested in postwar America. And it tanked with the critics. I put about 20K miles on it per year. So, they set about seeing what was what with a road-trip around Romania in three cars they would be testing. But youre right that would mean being a business man and not a con-artist. In a totalitarian state, such as was Yugoslavia, there is no political embarrassment because criticism is a criminal offense. The man is Malcom Bricklin. First, salt as a melting agent on roads was relatively new. The Renault Alliance and 18i were still being sold in 1984-85 when the Yugo debuted. Dont forget, we had the Czech Skoda Estelle, the Russian Lada and the Polish FSO 125p all competing at the bottom of the market. It is difficult to overstate how rustprone 1970s Japaneese cars were. But even before then, Subarus had features that endeared them to snow-belt climates, like dual radiators that got the car to warm up quickly. Its not unlike the relationship I have with my cockroaches of the road (TM). I was amazed when I rode in one, expecting a bouncy distaster but encountering a surprisingly supple feel of the suspension. I test drove one of these brand new when they hit the market. In the beginning they had some brief text ( "Years ago, the Yugo Car Company chose Verplanck, New York, to test market its new breed of vehicle. Drowning Mona (2000) is a never remembered black comedy that I absolutely love. Her brake lines had been cut. And if it WAS done, thats $500 WASTED. It was so bad we couldnt even get it to start, so we took a few parts off it and then the scrap yard came and took it away. Why did Yugos have standard rear defrost? But like so much of his other stuff, the deal fell through. Two YUGO watches, new. Also i believe that the whole project couldnt last very long because Crvena Zastava never had economic strength to satisfy such demanding market, which requires first class quality, excellent dealer network and a newer and bigger model every year, just to stay in business. Various ancillaries like alternators were replaced with real FIAT parts. The first thing to appear onscreen is a little blurb about the Yugo car company using the town of Verplanck as a test area for their new model years ago. State ownership is generally coupled to some sort of coersion, such as a penalty tax on other makes. I was sure youd have had one. By May of 1988, Malcom Bricklin needed a lifeboat and he found it on Wall Street. Nasty Mona Dearly (Midler) drives her car into the Hudson River and drowns. His shaky little import business was marketing Bertone X/19s after Fiat said arrivederci in 1982, but the end of that venture was in sight. After we meet the local residents, we understand why they're driving them now: They can't afford to replace them. Drowning Mona, Movie, 2000 Pictures provided by: garco, antp, ahight Display options: Also known as: Todos la queran muerta (Spain) Mais qui a tu Mona ? The Yugo was not always viewed so favorably, although its $3,990 price ($9,900 in today's dollars) grabbed headlines on its introduction in 1985. But that's a whole other story.") (Eagleburger had been U.S. ambassador to Yugoslvia and had spent almost all of his foreign service career in southeast europe. I knew a guy in the 90s, who was very smart (the grandson of a Nobel Prize winner in fact!) Someone steeped in the maintenace required to keep something like a Trabant running would probably be right at home with a Yugo. In the 70s when I lived in Boston, I worked with a guy whose 5-year-old Pinto had big holes in the doors. But for all that, and with weight today an even greater issueour Asian friends seem to have licked the corrosion problem. Of course, not wanting to be associated with alleged members of the alleged Romanian Mafia, Bently pulled out. I dont know if I was lucky (twice) or if my mechanical aptitude allowed me to save the cars I owned. }
A "Fetzer valve" is a fictional part of an engine, introduced in the movie Fletch (1985). Having seen pics of the 127, I can relay that the Yugo body is a complete reskin no lines or panels are the same or interchangeable. This may seem shocking, but Yugos really dont rust badly. Another example of the high cost of low priced objects. You could disassemble the whole car with like 5 Allen keys, three sockets and two Phillips-head screwdrivers, if you were inclined. Of course not. But back to the subject, shortage of all kind of raw material was the main reason for poor quality, not drunken workers. Of course, I was charmed by that, as it reminded me very much of the original A1 Golf, and seemed to share the same utility that the original A1 did. One day I put the key in and nothing happened, it was dead and wouldnt turn on. "She's dead," he confirms to Chief Rash (Danny DeVito), who nods grimly and begins a murder investigation. everything behind them. A girl I hung out with in college had a Yugo. It eventually developed a bad piston ring(s), and the blow by was enough to clog the carburetor so that it would stop running. They didnt always start, and they DID always rust away. But Bricklin assured his erstwhile investors that the car could be made ready for the U.S. market with some minor tweaks. I wonder if he actually carried that threat out, and if his daughter ever forgave him if he did. The cars in the movie were provided by Apple Motors in Denver, Colorado. But what about quality disasters in a different scenario?. I really dont think that anyone has a competitive advantage in rust resistance any more. IIRC, when hers finally died, she said that she tried to find another but couldnt. State-owned auto companies or assembly plants, tend to have little to no feedback from end-user to management. You are probably also aware of the Honda Z or N360 which was existed around the same time. Around the same time we had a similar thing in Australia the FSM Niki, which was a Polish-built Fiat 126, so a ~700cc rear-engined s-box. The car itself staggered on until early 1992, with steadily declining sales and a dealer network that was slowly (and then quickly) going bankrupt. As a Japanese kei class car,it was pretty good for crowded streets , expensive gasoline and as a motorcycle (or scooter,which Fuji also built) alternative. I know this is hardly the point of your blog entry, but as someone with a passionate interest in the region, Im compelled to mention that Yugoslavia broke apart mainly due to its heavy debt burden. couple of months ago when I was in Athens. To this day I have never felt a more imprecise,balky shifter. Several actors in this film have ties to the Batman films. document.getElementById("unic-gdpr").style.display = 'inline';
Ladas seem to be designed to be overhauled on the roadside these are probably the same. American Brands: AMC, Jeep and All Others, Tractors, Lawn Mowers, Off-Road Equipment, Automotive History The Jokes On U.S.- The Short, Wild Ride Of The Yugo In America, TOAL:1974(?) It is my understanding the latter Yugos were much better than their earlier counterparts, but still not up to snuff with the worst(?) According to IMDBThe first thing to appear on screen is a little blurb about the Yugo car company using the town of Verplanck as a test area for their new model years ago. He was rather sad that after 170,000 miles it had Wyatt finds no shortage of suspects. Possibly most accurate and realistic analysis I have heard yet regarding what happened in ex-Yugoslavia. I ask because I wanted to make a comment in the article about the C3 Audi 100/Audi 5000 about how much of a disaster my fathers ownership experience turned out to be, but I figured itd make an interesting point of comparison. Wikipedia says that the Yugo quality was satisfactory at the start but went downhill fast and the factory refused to do anything about it. Lack of an automatic would hamper the car during all but the final year in the states. i doubt they are still there. After Mona Dearly (Bette Milder) dies in the movie's opening moments when her Yugo plows through a guardrail and into the Hudson River far below, Wyatt begins investigating her death. In this black comedy, everyone in a small town becomes a suspect when a much-despised woman not-so-accidentally drives her Yugo off a cliff. (not that I cared that much about it I was in my mid-twenties and during summer season beaches were full of naked girls.) I saw this movie. That explains why everyone was driving them then. He was absolutely correct. (not the 1st time Ive done this,haha). They were incredibly simple mechanically. if (window['UnicI'].geo === 'EU') {
Motor Trend reported that their hand picked press ringer broke down during testing. Its a tough call on the Yugo. The entire dashboard- I mean the WHOLE thing in RHD versions is a single piece of soft foam. A revised constitution in the mid 70s turned the country into a loose confederation and as Croatia/Slovenia were more developed due to being part of Austria Hungary, there was only so much that approx thirty years of prosperity after WWII could reverse. One time the shifter came off in my hand. But there was one area that, frankly, I was impressed with, and that was the basic two-box design. Jason Vuic details this in his book The Yugo of how management refused plans for premiums for top-grade work or extra effort; of how primitive and shoddy were the paint booths, of how design goofs went uncorrected for years. The poor gal, if I remember, was named Lelo. So we come to the end of the Yugo saga in America. I attach a picture of a 1100,the previous model,(5 door too! At least a Suzuki Samurai has a separate frame. Drowning Mona 2000 (PG-13)Strident comedy about the low-IQ denizens of small town Verplanck, New York, where everybody still drives a Yugo (the town was a test market). (rolls eyes). If possible, the FSO 125p was even worse. Joe Friday (Dan Aykroyd) had a gold one in the Dragnet movie. A girl I knew in high school had one of these, it got rustier seemingly by the day, and this was in 1991-2 so it wasnt by any means an old car. Rated PG-13 With the pullout of Fiat, Renault and the British makes just a few years before,. Jeff might have wanted to kill her. who collected Yugos for pennies on the dollar and used the collection as a parts supply to keep ONE of them running. My little red Yugo was dead. The problems with Audisare RELATIVE to other brands; and RELATIVE to past experiences. The salesman was vaguely aware that they were built somewhere in Europe,but he was cagey about just where. And it was reasonably fast for a car with such a small displacement engine. Paid less than a thousand for it, thought at the time it was a good buy. I must admit that I own a Yugo. View Cars. IIRC, David E Davis even tried to help move these things by stating in Automobile that he was going to send his daughter off to college in one. We learn that Verplanck was selected as a test market when the Yugo was being introduced to the United States. readyGEO = true;
Nobody had let management know that the wiring harness as made, wasnt usable in that part of the car. This is the same scenario as Chrysler- My parents always said that if you get a Dodge in town itll be a lemon, but in the country, itll be a good car because the smaller country dealer relies on repeat business and does a better PDI, ensuring bolts arent missing, and both sides identify the car correctly. There was a movie in 2000 entitled Drowning Mona where most of the people in a . (* 5-20 for older cars, up to 200 if they have to change water-pump and rollers, new models are more expensive, but 500 maybe for new BMW). Everyone in Verplanck, N.Y., drives a Yugo. During WWII, they built a few Jeeps. She put about 50,000 miles on it without a problem-it was scrapped when she got rear-ended by a Camry. Initially, I had my eyes set on a mid 80s Toyota Celica as the cheapest car I could find. (Italy) 1989 Chrysler TC 1983 Dodge Omni 1991 Dodge Ram 1980 Ford F - 350 Ford Ranger 1993 Ford Ranger GMC C / K - Series 1992 Honda Civic I think I remember this! Unscrew the shift knob. I started to work in 1985 as a young engineer in the factory producing electrical equipment for the industry, and was very aware about problems we faced at the time. Film Focus: Drowning Mona. She is a bit of a contrarian anyhow, and has a mechanic-relative. -You know why Yugo drivers go to heaven? Critically, one of her co-workers loved Fiats, and he taught her their quirks-most of which the Yugo shared. @Jeff Nelson: I think youre a bit dismissive of Zastava, they have been around for quite some time. There was a dealer in Denver Colorado, called Apple Motors, who used to sell warmed up Yugos. How quickly they developed larger cars was a product of how well capitalized each company was and how much their senior management (some of which was deeply conservative, even by Detroit standards) was willing to make the investment in export-specific products. Found it! Bracket racing, of course. Yup, Im gonna go for a ride in my Ford Fester., I mentioned Drowning Mona below, before I read this. In The Film, for some inexplicable reason, everyone who lives in the Catskill area towns seems to drive a YUGO. The class all came out to look at it in the parking lot, Yugo was an exercise in marketing magic, and an exercise in embarrassment. Its not too late! I have known folks like that too. The New Brunswick government pulled the plug in September of 1975 and the Bricklin was finished. Drowning Mona - An explanation informs viewers that the setting (Verplanck, New York) was a test market for Yugos. It has been a while since I have seen a Yugo on the road, but a local car wash has one with signs mounted on it. He was scarred sh*tless and begging me to not make him drive it. When the Yugo GV was finally offered for sale in September 1985, (as an 86 model) , initial orders looked promising. But it needed even more tweaking than did the Jugo 45which is what the Yugo was based on. It was mainly low used values (the proton badge had no snob appeal) and apathy that saw them scrapped rather than any major fault of the car. Now Rash has to decide who killed Mona Dearly. My point is more that while suited for its home market, the Yugo was a cynical attempt by its promoter to make a quick buck by appealing to the most fickle, least loyal of all purchasers-the price shopper.It is only coincidental that the car was built in Yugoslavia. An older Yugo, since the car hasn't been manufactured since its country went out of business. It turns out to be murder and Chief Wyatt Rash (DeVito) must investigate. I heard a version on Car Talk of a deer that a priest hit and it had 150K on the clock when he hit it in his Yugo. There where lots of Yugo's used in the movie, but this was my favorite scene. Technically if its going downhill it wasnt moving on its own power. The two-door chassis is, I understand, a 127. As it turns out, the same rental car place was STILL selling surplus Yugos, and I bought a blue one this time. Mona Dearly: Yeah? Subaru was just a little behind the curve in terms of design and safetyas befits a smaller company. The car was a modest success with just under 8000 sold in the first year, but when the 360 was pilloried by Consumer Reports as being unacceptable because of its numerous safety issues, the bottom dropped out of the venture and the last few cars sat on dealers lots for years before they were practically given away. Drowning Mona 2000 PG-13 1 h 36 m IMDb RATING 5.7 /10 15K YOUR RATING Rate Play trailer 2:23 1 Video 67 Photos Comedy Crime Mystery When a woman drives a car into the river to her death, everyone in town becomes a suspect. But then my wife (of all people) found a Yugo for $800. Seem like this article is just a mishmash of old articles written by people who never owned a Yugo, dont know anything about yugos, or who designed its engine. Source for information on Drowning Mona: VideoHound's Golden Movie . . finally blown up. Since the film is set in modern, post y2k times, it may be the last one in running condition in the U.S. No, I dont know if they used an actual Yugo or just a skinned over FIAT prop, & if they did utilize a Yugo, how many production assistants were tasked with keeping it working ;-D. Also used for laughs in the Ackroyd/Hanks Dragnet movie. But theres a difference between an easily-repaired car, and one that needs frequent repairs. Also in Drowning Mona's favor, at the heart of the movie, is a genuinely positive character, Verplanck Police Chief Wyatt Rash (Danny DeVito).He's possibly the only principled citizen in town. IIRC, they licensed Fiat designs in the mid 50s and in 2008 they signed a Memorandum of Understanding to buy the auto assembly plant from Zastava. -Because they have already been through hell. Whats terrifying is that a convertible version of this thing the flimsiest vehicle imaginable was sold in the U.S. No flimsier than the Toyota Paseo or Geo Metro convertible. 1) Wise observation that Yugoslavia needed hard currency (without which it could not import needed consumer or industrial goods) during those years. Japanese cars generally started out small, usually around 800cc in the mid 1950s and grew with the prosperity of the country and desire to chase export markets. The problem is, there's not a single person in town who DIDN'T have a motive. Ironically, if he had stuck it out with Subaru for the long haul, he might have done a whole lot better for himself. But who? See production, box office & company info, Siskel & Ebert: Drowning Mona/My Dog Skip/What Planet Are You From?/The Next Best Thing/Miss Julie. It was amazing (to me) how they found a solution so quickly. The last Yugo I saw was 12 years ago, parked by a gas station in Truckee oh, and a restored Yugo was for sale on Craigslist a bit ago but I figured that would be a bad idea on the Subaru front: I heard a rumor, years ago, that Fuji bought all the American 360s and had them crushed any truth to that? Hell, he only paid something like $500 for a beater commuter car and this was in the late 1990s. What am I supposed to make outta that? I know of no explanation for the garbage experience my dad had with his Audi, which broke down regularly. At our Year 2000 track day at Lime Rock, one of the entries was a race-prepared Yugo. Unfortunately, Bricklin was smitten by the cars simple mediocrity and, just like a cartoon character with outsized dollar signs for eyes, he began the process for bringing the homely little car to the states. Youd have to go from fourth to first gear to come down. Neve Campbell was also working on Party of Five (1994) and Scream 3 (2000) while shooting this film. One of a kind, Im sure, There is an article from 2012, quoting the Time magazine . Sales quickly slowed when word of the myriad problems began to circulate in the media. Rona Mace (Jamie Lee Curtis) is an anagram for "a romance". (function waitGEO() {
The story involves a local police chief from New York state who is charged with . It's got an absolute star studded cast including Danny DeVito, Bette Midler, Casey Affleck, William Fitchner, Neve Campbell, Jaime Lee Curtis, with a cameo, and even . It would take about eight years from apparent problem to engineered fix to failure of the fix and another engineered solution. Just finished Drowning Mona and came here for background. So on the line, a worker would have to cut and install and tape it, with about a 25 percent failure rateincorrectly re-connected. A Rolls-Royce Ghost, a Mercades S-class, and a Bently Mulsane. I remember, as a teenJapanese cars had fit-and-finish second to none; they started and ran smoothly with the primitive emissions controls of the time; but boy, did they rust. The 71-76 GM full-sizers were better than average on this count. They would swap in the drivetrain from the Fiat X1/9 and put on the wider wheels tires from the X1/9 also. Agree with this last. There are lots of related legacies connected with Americas brief, mad affair with the Yugo. Purchased one year old cars for less than $1500 while attending college. Of course, as pointed out, it was more probable that hed have put the company out of business, too. Even in Western Europe, cars arent marketed as they are here. Well, as they say, two out of three aint bad. At inopportune times. I had always known these to be license-built versions of the 128. Membership also saw a similarly sharp increase, with over 1,800,000 in the same year (300,000 more than in 1970). That brochures more collectible than its car. Destination was Las Vegas; and by the time I got there the only way to get it to move was in First. Since Yugo America was basically just a collection of cheap office furniture and unanswered phones, creditors received essentially nothing for their interests in the company. Bricklin wisely took the first offer and netted about $20 million for his trouble. Danny Devito and Bette Midler starred together in "Ruthless People". Danny DeVito and Neve Campbell appeared together again six years after the release of this film in another comedy "Relative Strangers "(2006). I knew I wasnt buying a Lexus. })(); Pictures are property of movie companies owner of the respective movies. Drowning Mona is one of my favorite comedies, and its currently available on YouTube for free. The interior was fading right from day one. They start, get you to your destination in the dry, and thats about all you can saytheres no enjoyment in operating it and build quality was a joke. I didnt mind helping friends and neighbor with problems they had with their cars. The only car known to have been blown off of the Mackinac Bridge. I really believe that the cars were treated as disposable, and in that way expectations were met. Every vehicle in town that is not a truck is a Yugo, except the police cruisers, which are Plymouth Horizons. I know of a 1979 Datsun pickup that completly rusted out in 6 years. This was enough to keep them afloat (even with such strange offerings as the BRAT and XT) until 1989, when they really hit their stride with the introduction of the Outback and the successful Paul Crocodile Dundee Hogan marketing campaign. I remember seeing new Yugos at the (I think 1990) Chicago Auto Show. I had the car 18 months or so, when in traffic one day a DUI driver rammed his Ford Fiesta (of all things) into the back of my Yugo and pushed me into a Nissan Maxima. Nevermind that their cars are horribly unreliable, people still buy them. From the start, Zastava resented the profit dealers made, and thought their expenses exorbitant. She wrote something like, How cute, Ill be Lelo in her Yugo.. In fact, as it became evident that the Yugo was heading toward failure, Bricklin tried to modify and import the Proton from Malaysia to take advantage of low wage rates and favorable exchange valuations that would have made that car an asian version of the Yugo. As a result, in mid-1986, Yugo America began selling cars at a starting price of $3,990 (equivalent to $9,863.56 in 2021) for the entry-level GV ("Good Value") hatchback equipped with the 1,100 cc overhead-cam five-main-bearing engine and four-speed manual transmission. The Yugo got its biggest role in 2000, in Drowning Mona, starring Casey Affleck, Neve Campbell, Jamie Lee Curtis, Danny DeVito, and Bette Midler, with Will Farrell making a delightful cameo. The country was communist, but with good relations with the US and a cosmetically overhauled version of socialism, the idea was the Yugoslavia would compete in Western markets and as a result, the country took on a lot of debt throughout the 70s to update its capacity for making consumer goods, among other projects. Nevermind that their cars are horribly unreliable, people still buy them. (France) Chi ha ucciso la signora Dearly? For my family and me back in the eighties, fuel economy was king, so I drove K-Cars and assorted used vehicles that were cheap we never really struggled, but cash and monetary resources were scarce, hence my missing out on the larger, more deluxe offerings of GM, Ford and Chrysler. The space efficiency was great too- it really is tiny- and is NOT a fiat. The mechanical bits all seemed OK, and no obvious leaks or other damage. And the gas cap would not come off. I probably still have it somewhere. I knew about their reputation, but I really needed a set of wheels that wasnt going to set me back a couple of thousand dollars. Down shifting was scary, sometimes you just had to bypass second, sometimes it refused to even go into gear or it would get stuck in gear. DROWNING MONA 1/2 Tasteless but sporadically uproarious black comedy. Mona, played by Midler, drowns when the brakes in her Yugo fail and she catapults through a guardrail into the lake below. It broke down like a Yugo. But even in those circumstances, the car was not that bad as public opinion in USA about it. In regard to that old devil corrosion, an honest question: were there any cars of the seventies that DIDNT rust like mad? }
Ford 2000 Diesel Cold-Blooded and Worn Out, http://www.observer.com/2010/culture/wannabe-warhol?page=0, http://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_113306-Plymouth-Horizon-C2-1984.html, https://chrisoncars.com/yugo-victim-or-victimizer/, https://www.carkeys.co.uk/news/the-story-of-the-yugo-the-worst-car-in-the-world, https://www.ocregister.com/2017/01/03/the-best-worst-cars-ever/, https://blastmagazine.com/2014/05/13/truth-10-cars-never-hit-road/, https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2009/jan/14/cover/#, https://jalopnik.com/the-yugo-is-not-the-worst-car-ever-and-anyone-who-says-1830229976, 1987-91 Ford F-Series Bustruck Monster Mashup, COAL 2010 Subaru Forester Green, Its What Makes A Subaru, A $ubaru, Cohort Pic(k) of the Day: 1963(?) Danny DeVito (Chief Wyatt Rash) and Tracey Walter (Clarence) appeared in Matilda (1996). Casey Affleck has gone on record saying that both this film and Soul Survivors (2001) were his two least favorite films that he has worked on. Id actually like to have another one, but beef it up with Fiat parts. I saw one not long ago on the streets in Eugene, but couldnt catch it. As far as ethnicity goes, Im Russian by birth, Belarus to be exact, and have that somewhat stocky build to prove it! A Mitsubishi in all but name, Proton wisely didnt fiddle around with it much meaning you got a reliable Pseudo-Japanese car for your money, not a cobbled together lash up like the yugo was. Honestly, I think Zastava should be commended for the amount of engineering they were able to do independently, modifying and developing Fiat cars. What he saw was an operation that turned out a car designed (and abandoned) by Fiat years before. Me and my friend Jerry (from Sam Bonds) drove a Yugo at a wrecker yard in Coburg some years back. No tinted glass or glove compartment. I also bought a new Yugo in 1989, and had to replace brake master cylinder immediately because brakes would fail after about 10 km on the road. 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