Secondly, I would be one of those people who had a good experience with a Yugo. Ive got a couple of rusted out British cars one of which I repaired The rust was caused by poor window sealing on both water rusted it way out however the spares one was driven full of rust which spread it all through the unpainted box sections. At our Year 2000 track day at Lime Rock, one of the entries was a race-prepared Yugo. One time the keys were out and the car was still on and would not turn off. They were not standing still, by any means. He sat in the front seat once and never again! It wasnt ancient ethnic hatreds, it was more a perfect storm. Its the manifestation of the postwar Japanese industrial culturepredicated on continuous quality improvement; and with the use of statistical controls to produce ever-higher quality items with fewer deviations from specification. It was amazing (to me) how they found a solution so quickly. Like you can buy a car without a transmition. I owned two. Technically if its going downhill it wasnt moving on its own power. Those brave revolutionaries almost single handedly redefine their market segment and leave an indelible mark on the industry itself. 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. Vehicle used a lot by a main character or for a long time, Vehicle used by a character or in a car chase, Minor action vehicle or used in only a short scene. Youd have to go from fourth to first gear to come down. I know of no explanation for the garbage experience my dad had with his Audi, which broke down regularly. There was a guy that was racing a Yugo in SCCA competition, but thats been a long time ago. Ive got video somewhere. . They found problems in the assembly processone described was how the wiring harness to the rear liftgate and wiper, didnt fit the stamped holes allowed it. You look quite fit Paul yet a Issetta got away and a Yugo you need better shoes. This, the paring of weight, was even evident in Japanese trucks. The problems with Audisare RELATIVE to other brands; and RELATIVE to past experiences. About two years ago there was a Wall Street Journal article about a guy who drag races a Yugo. Dubrovnik is kind of old fashion place with somewhat stricter rules about dressing on the beaches and elsewhere. Not too long before I sold it, it had started to develop noisy CV joints, but by then the car was 8 years old and 100,000 miles. The ignition constantly gave out and so did the clutch. He drove them all fast and hard which no doubt shortened their operational life. This may seem shocking, but Yugos really dont rust badly. The brakes appear to have been tampered with, making it murder. An automatic wouldnt fit in the Yugo engine bay, so the only thing shiftless about the Yugo would be the Zastava workers that routinely drank on the job. They had other third-world markets in mind. And this works both ways after war ended in ex. Cool Cruise CAR SHOW Cruisin' Brea CAR SHOW Cruisin' La Verne CAR SHOW Brea Holiday CAR SHOW Project Home America Flying Deuces is a production, marketing, booking and advertising company. To say that the 360 was unsuited to American driving norms is to wildly overpraise the car. Most can be rectified by the shareholders or the Boards of Directors, the shareholders representatives. I also have to say that state ownership does not always lead to poor business. If Germany had built it, would it have been called the Germ? Why are there so many Yugo in this movie? Yugo Cars in Drowning Mona 4,507 views May 7, 2014 19 Dislike Share Save The NZ Yugo 1.65K subscribers Oh such a crack up movie and it involves my favorite thing YUGOS! Old joke. 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. To be sure, the car was primitive, even by 1980s standards. Money was a problem; but not the root problem. Or perhaps the murderer was her husband, Phil (William Fichtner), who is having an affair with Rona (Jamie Lee Curtis), a waitress at the local diner (who is also having an affair with Jeff, so maybe she killed Mona just because she was tired of hearing about her from both men). The Yugo was based on a mash up of models 127 and 128 built under license by a wildly unproductive workforce in an obsolete factory with assembly quality that made real mid 70's Fiats look hand built. The two-door chassis is, I understand, a 127. Amidst mutual finger pointing, the deal collapsed in July 2008 as the erstwhile partners took turns suing one another in federal court. Barnum, Theres a sucker born every minute con-artist. The cars were not labor or maintenance intensive at all, and in fact some things worked better on that car than did my dear old Lancer, like the A/C system. 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. As my old profesor of economics said: War is the best economic valve Unfortunately, Ive learned that from personal experience. 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. The Mopar fuselage cars were not too bad, but the 71 on up B bodies were not so good. Rather, I see him as an irrepressible optimist who went into his various ventures believing everything would turn out well and he was blind to the shortcomings of the cars he imported. I recall A caddy dealer in the Cleveland area who gave away a free Yugo with the purchase of a Cadillac! UK Yugo dealers were often small garages in small towns, who really tried to do the prep work to get the cars out well. He lost his house, his fortuneAnd the dozens of Yugo GVs that he received as part of his settlement with his bankers. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead, it wasnt that he didnt want to learn, it was where he was sitting that had him scarred. . But with enough TLC (something the average American consumer wasnt high on), maybe they werent so bad (at least a few of them, anyway). 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! I saw this movie. 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. ), See all comments about this movie and its vehicles. I dont know if I was lucky (twice) or if my mechanical aptitude allowed me to save the cars I owned. 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. The Yugos are a literal running joke throughout the movie. 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. Of course not. if(document.getElementById("unic-ccpa")) { They are also heavily used rather than background or minor action vehicles. A magazine road test came up with the amusing summary: Big deal, huh? Say what you will about Bricklin he is a man of action. The cars in the movie were provided by Apple Motors in Denver, Colorado. The running gear would be the 1.1 Litre straight four that Zastava had learned to build from Fiat and the transmission would be a truly nasty four speed manual. But then my wife (of all people) found a Yugo for $800. There was a short in the headlights, and the switch for the engine cooling fan was broken both of which were easily fixed. Copyright 2011 - 2023 Curbside Classics. who collected Yugos for pennies on the dollar and used the collection as a parts supply to keep ONE of them running. 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. Substandard seatbelt anchors, collapsing seats, hard starting, no starting, the list was endless. Film Focus: Drowning Mona. But there was one area that, frankly, I was impressed with, and that was the basic two-box design. Its a tough call on the Yugo. 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. document.getElementById("unic-gdpr").style.display = 'inline'; (Fiat DID design the chassis, after all.). And as any living myth, this one spreads into other areas as well: While poor Yugo certainly was not the best car made, but it was hardly the worst either. By the 90s Japan had it totally nailed. The character name, Wyatt Rash, was intentionally chosen by writer, Peter Steinfeld, to reflect the underlying premise of the movie -- said fast enough, it sounds like yup, White Trash! See production, box office & company info, Siskel & Ebert: Drowning Mona/My Dog Skip/What Planet Are You From?/The Next Best Thing/Miss Julie. The cars WERE crap, you concede; and uncompetitive in a world market. other small car offerings back then. Every vehicle in town that is not a truck is a Yugo, except the police cruisers, which are Plymouth Horizons., And lastly, I recall seeing a comedian on TV talking about Yugos. Purchased one year old cars for less than $1500 while attending college. The real reason why Crvena Zastava went into this adventure was that they were desperate to get some foreign currency to keep assembly lines alive. Back in another shop (an independent who specialized in Fiats) there was some general loose talk about popping a 128 engine in there; but given a verbal estimate, I cut it off. 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. 2) My wife (an engineer like yourself) has been to Dubrovnik and says that the beaches are incredible. \"Drowning Mona\" is bad . As it turns out, the same rental car place was STILL selling surplus Yugos, and I bought a blue one this time. What do you call a Yugo with twin exhausts? )that I spotted a The problems experienced with Yugos, were unknown to new-car buyers in that era; were entirely avoidable with better assembly and simple correction of design and process mistakes; and were connected to durability related to poor design or engineering. DROWNING MONA 1/2 Tasteless but sporadically uproarious black comedy. 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. 3. I cant think of another car that disappeared off the roads faster. At least a Suzuki Samurai has a separate frame. A "Fetzer valve" is a fictional part of an engine, introduced in the movie Fletch (1985). Nobody had let management know that the wiring harness as made, wasnt usable in that part of the car. However, these engines have been known to go 200K with little bearing wear if maintained appropriately. This is all fictional of course. Reading in Consumer Reports that the tester injured his toe when the front seat came crashing down on it. Anyway, you got 2 I think 6.5 door speakers standard and an option for 2 46 oval speakers, mounted in the rear cargo covers side panels for a total of 4 speakers and an optional AC unit that replaced the console stack, just below the heater and the floor and it I think augmented the weak heater in these things. Could not resist seeing what a piece of crap would look like with no tin on the top. The problem here was, first, poor management, as I noted; second, a workplace culture and a national culture that was absolute authoritarianism. 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. It had become commonplace in the 1950s; and manufacturers first tried ignoring the problem; then dealing with it with superficial fixes like Zincrometal body panels. There was something wrong with every single facet of this car. and lso two Horizon ? When they came unglued from rot, there was no there there to support the structure. The poor gal, if I remember, was named Lelo. 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. They probably would have found a customer base in the U.S. But the proof of the pudding is the tasting; and I have YET to see a government-built car, or other product or service, which could stand head to heat with private competionstand on MERIT. I saw one not long ago on the streets in Eugene, but couldnt catch it., Theres got to be a comeback there! Lucinda (Kathleen Wilhoite), the local garage mechanic, checks out the death vehicle and confirms the sheriff's suspicions: The car was rigged. The film also stars Neve Campbell, Jamie Lee Curtis, Casey Affleck, William Fichtner, Marcus Thomas, and Peter Dobson. Or maybe not. 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. Although it shares some similarities with the Fiat 127, it is actually based on the much more advanced Autobianchi. In Spain it was called "Todos la queran muerta" (everyone wanted her dead), Too good of a movie not to be on this site in HD. In fact, if anything, Americas foreign policy in the 80s encouraged Yugoslavia to manufacture and export finished goods to pay its debts. (not that I cared that much about it I was in my mid-twenties and during summer season beaches were full of naked girls.) The man is Malcom Bricklin. It wasnt my intention to advocate poor workmanship on the Yugo, it was all too obvious but i wanted to show that there were also other circumstances involved. How many remains ??? I attach a picture of a 1100,the previous model,(5 door too! Had a Datsun King Cab twenty-odd years agoand I went parts-shopping in boneyards. And when longtime resident Mona Dearly (BETTE MIDLER) drove her Yugo into the river to her death, no one really seemed to care. Youre welcome here anytime ! 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. Also, I think that first step after buying any used car in general should be changing of belt. I really believe that the cars were treated as disposable, and in that way expectations were met. 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. One of a kind, Im sure, There is an article from 2012, quoting the Time magazine console.log(window['UnicI'].geo); I actually grabbed a brochure on the convertible as a joke, it was only a single page. finally blown up. Well life handed me a whole pile a' shit! About a year or so into owning the blue one, the clutch cable snapped (in traffic, of course). Theres a fellow in the NorCal chapter of The Fiat Club first names Dan, I think who owns a pristine Yugo in a burnt orange color. Several actors in this film have ties to the Batman films. 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. the building is used several times a month for exclusive private hip-hop dance parties. Even in Western Europe, cars arent marketed as they are here. So, with connections, he was brought to Japan for a series of lectures; and if America wasnt interested, Japan was very much so. They obviously do not run. 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. This car didnt want to go into reverse at a standstill. Every vehicle in town that is not a truck is a Yugo, except the police cruisers, which are Plymouth Horizons. Actually, from my experience with Yugo monocoque, four doors would have crushing effect on rigidity:). It would take about eight years from apparent problem to engineered fix to failure of the fix and another engineered solution. Bricklins old nemesis Consumer Reports weighed in on the cars many shortcomings in its February 1986 issue and refused to recommend it at any price. Fuji was pretty well aware that the car wasnt suitable for America circa 1969. Mine was still only about a year old, so I was in denial about its performance. I see one maybe twice a year. During WWII, they built a few Jeeps. What kind of sicko lives there? It was not much bigger than a homeless persons shopping cart and similarly stocked. Your experience was exactly what my suspicions were about these cars. I guess I should note that I owned the cars 20+ years ago, I was a lot more enthusiastic about getting underneath the car for just about any reason. Casey Affleck wore a blonde wig for this film. But outside of regular tourist routes and specially on the outer islands, unofficial nude beaches were everywhere. 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. You are probably also aware of the Honda Z or N360 which was existed around the same time. When a woman drives a car into the river to her death, everyone in town becomes a suspect.When a woman drives a car into the river to her death, everyone in town becomes a suspect.When a woman drives a car into the river to her death, everyone in town becomes a suspect. It is difficult to overstate how rustprone 1970s Japaneese cars were. Trouble for him was, the rest of America wasnt interested in postwar America. I drove the blue one about three more years, but it did have some issues. 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. My favorite memory was the NYC art exhibit where every sculpture was created from the remains of an old Yugo. And, with such an unsatisfying ending and its inability to capitalize on a potentially funny situation, it's a film that you probably shouldn't rush to see on DVD. Reviewed in . (As you said JustPassinThru). Drowning Mona Trailer - Yugo Cars 7,448 views May 7, 2014 The NZ Yugo 1.66K subscribers 26 Dislike Share In Drowning Mona everyone drives Yugo Cars and one day Mona borrows her sons. Jason Torchinsky of Jalopnik had an interesting take on it lately; Barnum and the circus freak show that he brought to America in the twilight of the Reagan years. 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. It had nervousness built into it, it made people nervous and it was nervous. So on the line, a worker would have to cut and install and tape it, with about a 25 percent failure rateincorrectly re-connected. As the movie opens, a local woman named Mona Dearly ( Bette Midler) speeds down a country road and directly into the Hudson River when her brakes fail. Could you imagine if another country decided to do that? At least until the inevitable head gasket problems caused by an Iron head and alloy block. https://jalopnik.com/the-yugo-is-not-the-worst-car-ever-and-anyone-who-says-1830229976, The Yugo Is Not the Worst Car Ever and Anyone Who Says That Is a Lazy Hack So Lets Prove It, Your email address will not be published. I was worried that shed make it. With the pullout of Fiat, Renault and the British makes just a few years before, there was a general sense that room existed in the market for any european nameplate that could build a reasonably priced car that returned good fuel economy and high build quality. There was a cheap-o daily rental car company that had a fleet of them, and they were in the process of changing out the Yugos for Hyundai Precis. Id notice the original Civic CVCC, I had one, loved it and sold it much too soon. 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). So it worked pretty well in the domestic market, but USA is another story. I sold the car to a coworker of my BILs, who drove the car another three years before he totaled it. But before Bricklin made a virtue of safety, he all but made a mockery of same just a half decade before. When I got there, my promised job had fallen through and my wife and child still needed a car, and I needed one for working. Knobs came off in your hand, the sliding radio marker on a string would get stuck and not move off of from where it landed. Drowning Mona is a 2000 American 'comedy' film starring Danny DeVito, Bette Midler, Jamie Lee Curtis, Casey Affleck, Melissa McCarthy, Brian Doyle-Murray, and box-office superstar Will Ferrell. Drowning Mona is one of my favorite comedies, and its currently available on YouTube for free. I would love to find one of those. Dont forget, we had the Czech Skoda Estelle, the Russian Lada and the Polish FSO 125p all competing at the bottom of the market. 459 tweaks (and 18 months) later, the Yugo was almost ready for launch. Actually, Perry did a much better job of it than I could have. She was given a Yugo that wouldnt runthe fix was nine dollars. These cars came with an optional AM/FM cassette deck that was very basic, only 5W total if I recall right, or was that 5W per channel? Tracey Walter appeared in the original Tim Burton Batman, Danny DeVito appeared as The Penguin in Batman Returns and William Fichtner appeared in The Dark Knight. Warranty claims were dreadful. As far as ethnicity goes, Im Russian by birth, Belarus to be exact, and have that somewhat stocky build to prove it! And if it WAS done, thats $500 WASTED. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism. It couldnt be trusted just sitting in the parking lot. 5.0 out of 5 stars Drowning Mona music CD. I wonder why they used the Yugos, To show the towns Quirkyness? Motor Trend reported that their hand picked press ringer broke down during testing. When the Yugo GV was finally offered for sale in September 1985, (as an 86 model) , initial orders looked promising. Rated PG-13 And it tanked with the critics. Or maybe Bobby (Casey Affleck), Jeff's landscaping partner, killed her to save the embarrassment of having her create a scene at his wedding to Ellen (Neve Campbell), Chief Rash's daughter. By third world standards, the Yugo was not a terribly bad car and sales continued even after its mother country began breaking up in the early 90s. When I was living in Montana in 2001, some masochist/crusty old guy was using one as a daily driver and it looked new. In the early 80s many of the domestics suddenly found they could use galvanized steel for body panels, and inner fender liners and other rust proofing methods, (better drains, etc.) Ah, the quintessential crap car. Soon we would have a whole line of Adams Family cars on the road! Yeah, theres no question on really poor build quality. Everyone in Verplanck, N.Y., drives a Yugo. The lovable numbskulls of Verplanck, New York, are all beside themselves with shock and quiet joy when town bully Mona Dearly dies in a freak accident involving her Yugo, some cut brake lines, and a plunge into the Hudson. He later served briefly as acting Secretary of State during the last months of the first Bush presidency). (We also wanted to stick a finger in the eye of the USSR, which was at odds with Yugoslavia anyway). 2) At the 2014 Route 66 Mother Road Festival in Springfield, Illinois there was a Yugo with a Chrysler 426 Hemi (with blower) in the rear of the car (Hemi under glass). 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