The carpet was very loose fitting and curled up in spots along the edges. I went to an auto place for a part, and was so embarassed to even say Yugo to the clerk, that my voice stuttered and I replied Yugee. Yugo-mania also swept through Hollywood for a time and was the star car in movies such as The Birdcage, Drowning Mona, Die Hard 3, The Crow, Inspector Gadget and 101 Dalmatians. . At only 20,000 miles it was worn out, fading, under powered, rusting, it wanted to die and be buried, it certainly didnt want to be a car! One of the sight gags is that everyone in town drives a Yugo, thereby using personalized license plates as a necessity more than anything else.) 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. if (window['UnicI'].geo === 'EU') { One of the magazines rolled one on test, and they had a top speed of around 65mph. Danny DeVito and Bette Midler appeared in Ruthless People (1986). New York (where "years ago," according to an opening caption, "the Yugo Car Company chose to test market its new breed of vehicle.") Directed by Nick Gomez (Laws of Gravity), . I remember checking them out back in I think 1986 at a local dealer and loved that bright blue they were offering at the time, called Adriatic Blue. My mother drove it to work at the high school one time. Wheel barrow. Its not like Fiat designs were anything special, quite the contrary in many instances. At my brothers wedding this weekend, what did I see right across the street from the Germanic-American Institute on Summit Avenue in St. Paul, Minnesota? Your email address will not be published. I think that for a 1992 car (perhaps it should be a Serb-o? They sold boatloads of them in Europe to price buyers, taxi companies, retired folk etc. I drove it in Atlanta rush hour traffic, it got about 40MPG and I grew to really like the little beast. At first glance, the car looked up to date- Front wheel drive, rack and pinion steering, decent mileage. But for all that, and with weight today an even greater issueour Asian friends seem to have licked the corrosion problem. Also, the factory refused to make design changes that were obviously needed and would have been simple to implement. NO. 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. Lack of an automatic would hamper the car during all but the final year in the states. The prototypical belt-driven OHC engine Stateside, was the Pontiac Sixand Joe Sherlock, who has a car blog, The View Through the Windshield (http://www.joesherlock.com/blog.html) was involved in the development of the initial fiberglass-impregnated belt. Renault has been in state ownership since the 50s, and has been a very profitable company. In the small, white-trash town of Verplanck, N.Y., a loathsome woman named Mona Dearly (a dour and ugly Bette Midler) drives her car over a cliff and into the river. Ive never felt safe in any car that light so would never have considered owning one, no matter how cheap, even if they had been decently made vehicles. The accident I referenced in my earlier post has adversely affected my overall health (lumbar damage), and Im nowhere near as ready to slide under a car as I used to be. The Florida was reviewed very positively in the UK against western cars, and sadly only failed here because of the rise of Fascism in Yugoslavia, and its aftermath. DROWNING MONA 1/2 Tasteless but sporadically uproarious black comedy. "She's dead," he confirms to Chief Rash (Danny DeVito), who nods grimly and begins a murder investigation. document.getElementById("unic-gdpr").style.display = 'inline'; My dad is a bit of a FIAT nut so he would wrench on it from time to time. With the pullout of Fiat, Renault and the British makes just a few years before,. The biggest thing Ive heard was the timing belts were supposedly good for 30K miles and many owners were caught off guard, mostly due to not reading and/or heeding the maintenance intervals and boom, they croaked as they were not non interference motors like most OHC motors arent. Zastava only collapsed in 2008, and its decline was NOT due to mismanagement, but the trade embargo on Serbia, which starved them of devlopment funds. ), it was quite good. Which together would have theoretically allowed the Yugo to be more successful. lol, Yugos were marketed in USA 1985 to 1990 by Malcolm Bricklin's vehicle imports Firm. Id actually like to have another one, but beef it up with Fiat parts. As my old profesor of economics said: War is the best economic valve Unfortunately, Ive learned that from personal experience. AMC, in its last years, went so far as to have Ziebart license its procedure for use in the factory. I remember the shifter being very vague and rubbery but it did the job and the car wasnt too bad on other respects and I rather liked its styling. Theyre really a mishmash of the two; with their own unique body. Diversity was their strength!!!!!!!!!!! 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. I actually grabbed a brochure on the convertible as a joke, it was only a single page. The best part was they all had the same license plates on them to just have a semblance of legality! I attach a picture of a 1100,the previous model,(5 door too! But Bricklin assured his erstwhile investors that the car could be made ready for the U.S. market with some minor tweaks. 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. Change Ad Consent 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. But recycled steel, for whatever reason, is overly prone to corrosion. I cant think of another car that disappeared off the roads faster. Handling is sharp and the engine loves to rev. At first glance, the car looked up to date- Front wheel drive, rack and pinion steering, decent mileage. I cant imagine that anybody that test drove one like mine actually laid down real money for one. 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. Jamie Lee Curtis and Neve Campbell are both known as "Final Girls" or "Scream Queens", playing recurring heroines in their respective horror franchise films: Curtis in the "Halloween" franchise and Campbell in the "Scream" franchise--which is loosely based on the "Halloween" mythos. He was a statistician in the War Department who became interested in using statistical controls to produce higher-quality manufactured goods. They were incredibly simple mechanically. The man is Malcom Bricklin. I bought a used, year-old Yugo. 2004-2023 IMCDb.org Managed by Controgest SPRL Do not sell my data They did not have such a bad reputation,at least not as bad as the rear engined Skodas 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. Unpaid claims included some warranty work done by dealers on Yugos before sales collapsed. -You know why Yugo drivers go to heaven? I guess the major issue in my favor was the relatively inexpensive parts when I did need them, and the fact that Georgia is semi-arid, so no rust issues. couple of months ago when I was in Athens. Its a tough call on the Yugo. 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. VW, in its first days, had all the same problems as Zastavabut with a product that was continually improved, they overcame it inside of five years. But there was one area that, frankly, I was impressed with, and that was the basic two-box design. who collected Yugos for pennies on the dollar and used the collection as a parts supply to keep ONE of them running. Why Fiat? The Kei cars, like European microcars in the 1950s and early 60s, made car ownership possible for the masses. From the start, Zastava resented the profit dealers made, and thought their expenses exorbitant. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. It is a measure of the local intelligence that when the car and driver are dragged to shore some hours later, the doctor checks her pulse. I have only seen one Yugo in my life. Or inherrent underdog status? The Little SuBARu Wow!, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLPp-NFInXw. This doomed script and conventional direction venture for Nick Gomez (" New Jersey Drive "/" Laws of Gravity "), results in a comedy that got by with a few mean-spirited jokes. readyGEO = true; The 360 fit in with the type of Japanese car that was (or would become) the Kei car class, which continues to this day within tightly-defined parameters. Well life handed me a whole pile a' shit! They would swap in the drivetrain from the Fiat X1/9 and put on the wider wheels tires from the X1/9 also. Actually, from my experience with Yugo monocoque, four doors would have crushing effect on rigidity:). how did Subaru make the transition from dangerous sardine can to granola FWD/AWD family compact in the US?. Since mine had been in a rental fleet, it was actually pretty well taken care of, it had an OK aftermarket radio and A/C. But then thats not what most folks are exactly looking for. European manufactures give guarantee for lets say 50k-250k km (~30k-150k mi) and 5-10 years, whatever come first (in practice mileage is more important), but previous owner could use some product with shorter life thats why this saving of couple* Euros isnt worth a risk. The steel is much thicker than Fiat used, and although fit and finish wasnt great, it was no worse than on a Fiat. A magazine road test came up with the amusing summary: The collapse of Communism removed any perceived legitimacy left in the public who thought their future under capitalism would reflect a standard of living like W Germanys. 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. 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. I actually checked out a Yugo about the same time I was looking at Sundances, Colts and similar vehicles and decided: No, I didnt have the time for the do-it-yourself maintenance it mightve required my current cars took care of that at the time! By May of 1988, Malcom Bricklin needed a lifeboat and he found it on Wall Street. Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. Drowning Mona is basically a comic murder-mystery. I really dont think that anyone has a competitive advantage in rust resistance any more. The early Japanese cars were not that different from the 360: Junk. 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. Source for information on Drowning Mona: VideoHound's Golden Movie . 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. Drowning Mona | 2000 | PG-13 | - 5.5.5. Yugos are cars. She was given a Yugo that wouldnt runthe fix was nine dollars. I would like to add that once money was in short supply, it was easy to lay a blame on the other side, to stir old misunderstandings and conflicts, send kids to London or USA and start profiting from the war. I probably still have it somewhere. You mentioned this before; itd make a great article. Frequently, that new model sets the status quo on its ear and forever changes the way we think about (and react to) our transportation needs. The process, alone, of a car manufacturer as a unit of government, is suspect. Someone steeped in the maintenace required to keep something like a Trabant running would probably be right at home with a Yugo. Drowning Mona (2000) is a never remembered black comedy that I absolutely love. They initially started out as an arms manufacturer. After the 1973 oil shock and protracted period of economic stagnation globally, Western markets had less incentive to buy anything from Yugoslavia. I was discussing cars with a woman in my office building one day, when she remarked that she had owned a Yugo, and got an incredible number of miles out of it. Actually, Perry did a much better job of it than I could have. Show more Yugo America. The Proton is only a Malaysian Mitsubishi exactly the same awful car Hyundai built as trhe EXCEL. I was unaware of the Bricklin connection at the time, and in fact learned about it here on CC, but I remember seeing some Bricklins as a kid, thinking that they were cool looking cars, and wondering why there werent more of them. The interior was fading right from day one. Also, the GM Colonades from 73-77 were pretty rust resistant as well. https://chrisoncars.com/yugo-victim-or-victimizer/: (Time Magazine said it best: The Yugo has the distinct feeling of something assembled at gunpoint), I found quite a few articles from later years, quoting the same sentence over and over again (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/), And there you have it: everybody knows for fact that Yugo was actually assembled at gunpoint. Yes you read that right. They dumped em, too, as soon as they could afford something, anything, better. The Renault Alliance and 18i were still being sold in 1984-85 when the Yugo debuted. Ever notice how a lot of movie smokers seem to have just lighted their cigarettes? Ive been around big rigs all of my life, but they never looked bigger than when I was next to them on the freeway. The Italian Government and the Unions forced Fiat to cooperate. })(); Pictures are property of movie companies owner of the respective movies. One time the shifter came off in my hand. The car is the Yugo. The "Fetzer valve", when Lucinda the mechanic is giving the Sheriff her findings about Mona's car, she says the "Fetzer valve" had been punctured. Thanks for your first hand account ! Bricklin is still nominally involved with a venture called Visionary Vehicles and appears on its website today.The end of his Yugo adventure left him short of funds to repay an impressive list of creditors, investors and employees and even the IRS took its pound of flesh later on. I wonder why they used the Yugos, To show the towns Quirkyness? Drowning Mona (2000) Trivia Showing all 16 items 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. In a recent episode of Top Gear UK the trio were allegedly asked by an alleged high-ranking member of the alleged Romanian Mafia what would be the best luxury car for one of his stature. He drove them all fast and hard which no doubt shortened their operational life. Thank you for the interesting history. My BIL and I popped out the axles, but that was more of a preventative move, rather than a necessity. . As to Bricklin, Ive always liked of liked the SV-1 and wish Id picked one up when they were really cheap, with the AMC 360 they could be made to really move! I wonder if he actually carried that threat out, and if his daughter ever forgave him if he did. A minor investment bank salvaged Bricklins investment in the venture in a complicated deal that settled some of his stale old debts and sent him far away from Yugo America. 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. Disc #1 -- Drowning Mona Play Feature Chapters Setup 5.1 Surround Stereo English SDH Subtitles: On Subtitles: Off Extras - Trailers Drowning Mona Eye Of The Beholder . Renault has been in state ownership since the 50s, and has been a very profitable company. As played in flashbacks by Midler, Mona is a ferocious harridan who may have hacked off her own son's hand just because he was trying to snatch her beer. Chief Wyatt Rash: My mother always used to say, "When life hands you potatoes, make potato salad!". Youd have to go from fourth to first gear to come down. Purchased one year old cars for less than $1500 while attending college. Its not too late! To be sure, the car was primitive, even by 1980s standards. @Jeff Nelson: I think youre a bit dismissive of Zastava, they have been around for quite some time. So it worked pretty well in the domestic market, but USA is another story. The body and car belonging to Kiely Rodni, a missing 16-year-old girl, may have been found in a Califronia lake on Sunday, according to a search and rescue group. A 2000 American crime comedy film directed by Nick Gomez that has a police chief ( Danny DeVito) investigate the death of a woman named Mona ( Bette Midler ), an abusive and spiteful woman who was hated by everyone who knew her. . 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. Subaru was just a little behind the curve in terms of design and safetyas befits a smaller company. 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