My problem was that I didn't care who killed Mona Dearly, or why, and didn't want to know anyone in town except for Chief Rash and his daughter. @Zackman: No the real experience was driving that thing in Atlanta rush hour traffic at 80+ MPH. Which, actually, was a very good little car . First of all, thanks to Perry Shoar for a very well written explanation of the events of the 70s and 80s that led to the meltdown of Yugoslavia. Ive heard that by 1989, Malcolm Bricklin was kicked out and Zastava took over importing the cars to the US and made a substantial series of changes/improvements and the cars then came with fuel injection, the GV, GVL, GVC, and GVS and the sportier GVX were combined into one car, the GV Plus fitted with better seats (the fold and slide seats from the GVX), the larger 1.3L 4, the 5spd in a more basic interior and exterior trim package, adding the AC etc and Bosh fuel injection and I hear from Chris Vitale who runs Fiat 500 USA blog who owned a 1991 Yugo with FI until a couple of years or so ago that by then, their warranty claims were very good, but the war took its toll as did the emissions debacle in 1992 brought the cars run in the US to an end. Screenwriter Peter Steinfeld says the film was originally going to be set in a mythical north. I mean, cmon, its an Eastern Bloc car. 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. Im affiliated with NECC Motorsports, a club that runs time trials at various sports car racing tracks in the eastern half of the USA. One reason is that lots of people own and drive them and parts are a breeze. With Danny DeVito, Bette Midler, Neve Campbell, Jamie Lee Curtis, Casey Affleck, Peter Dobson, Will Ferrell, William Fichtner, Raymond O'Connor, Marcus Thomas and . 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. And it tanked with the critics. 2. I didnt mind helping friends and neighbor with problems they had with their cars. Much bigger players failed on this field, like Peugeot and Renault, while on the domestic market and in the whole EU they are doing just fine. The displacement limit for kei cars was increased to 550cc some years ago. One day a red one, next day yellow, the day after white, he was gathering up the by then give-away bombs that still ran. (* 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). One time the keys were out and the car was still on and would not turn off. Two YUGO watches, new. Ive been toying with seeing if I can find one thats been stored in a garage somewhere and buying it to replace my aging truck that leaks oil and coolant and tide the time before I can buy the new Fiat 500. Jeff might have wanted to kill her. 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. i cant imagine where bricklin would get the approximately $35k/mo rent. In my Country was make an attempt to import the Yugo Cabrio,rebadged as Innocenti Koral Cabrio,but homologation fiche wasn't approved for Italy,but if car was tested by Italian motor magazines(Italy will import Yugos twice,1986 to 1987 with origin name Zastava Yugo and 1990 to 1992 as Innocenti Koral 45 and 55--that rebadged for our Country), I like this movie. In 1968, Bricklin thought that what America needed was an air cooled two cylinder car that could make zero to sixty in thirty seven agonizing seconds. 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. I havent seen one on the road in at least 15 years. )that I spotted a But with enough TLC (something the average American consumer wasnt high on), maybe they werent so bad (at least a few of them, anyway). What I know is that people explain such quality failures as Zastavas being due to a different culture in worker managed firms, etc. Likewise the Toyotas and Datsuns. Ive got video somewhere. Honestly, I think Zastava should be commended for the amount of engineering they were able to do independently, modifying and developing Fiat cars. Ford uses a similar shade on their Mustangs of recent vintage and still love it even now. They initially started out as an arms manufacturer. And that, sadly, is the point and the problem. 1987 brought about several other trims, the GVL, GVS, GVC,which were very similar other than the door panels and seat upholstery. Mine was 5 years old and had like 40K miles on it. One day I put the key in and nothing happened, it was dead and wouldnt turn on. 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. Its unfortunate that the vast majority of Yugo owners didnt even get that. LOL The old fashioned radio was a piece of crap, and the speakers cracked and gave out after very little use. FSO 125P: 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. Hell, I was 20 years younger, A lot can change in that time. Hell, he only paid something like $500 for a beater commuter car and this was in the late 1990s. It failed, of all places, on the Bonneville salt flats area in Utah. I guess Ive been mispronouncing subaru all these years. 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. Good account. His last notable brush with the automotive world (in 2004) involved a vague alliance with (uh-oh) Chinese auto maker Chery. In The Film, for some inexplicable reason, everyone who lives in the Catskill area towns seems to drive a YUGO. I have known folks like that too. State-owned auto companies or assembly plants, tend to have little to no feedback from end-user to management. No one in the movie is particularly vicious (well, Jeff's no prize) and the urgency of the case is undermined by the general agreement that Verplanck is calmer and happier now that Mona's gone. She claimed that once you knew and understood them, they were not bad cars for what they were. We had these in the U.K, I dont remember them being particularly bad, the main criticism was that it was seen as too expensive for what was clearly an Eastern European rehash of a cast off western design. Retrospective - 2000's "Drowning Mona". 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. Jamie Lee Curtis' character looks like she has some colorful insights to share but isn't given the dialogue to do it--she's more a plot marker than a person. Yes, a Deer. I presume the folding roof is there just in case the doors jam shut because of a sagging body! the building is used several times a month for exclusive private hip-hop dance parties. Source for information on Drowning Mona: VideoHound's Golden Movie . Mona Dearly: Yeah? (first posted 10/10/2011) Every once in a while, a visionary, iconoclastic automotive pioneer bursts on the scene and, bucking the long odds and naysaying conventional wisdom, delivers a disruptive new line of cars. I see one maybe twice a year. He got two large import operations going and he launched the SV-1. Zastava Zastava made Yugos even after they stopped selling in America. Damn that X1/9 still looks beautiful just like mine the 81 behind the new Abarth. Say what you will about Bricklin he is a man of action. So on the line, a worker would have to cut and install and tape it, with about a 25 percent failure rateincorrectly re-connected. Just like the Russian Lada its simple and DIY friendly as long as you relise that and dont expect a Lexus. Trouble for him was, the rest of America wasnt interested in postwar America. I had two of them. I would venture to guess that there are fewer than 500 running condition Yugos still on the road in the U.S. (most of which need a little TLC) Anybody that ever owned one of these little mobile gulags will tell you that there was nothing loveable, cute or endearing about them. 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. Possibly most accurate and realistic analysis I have heard yet regarding what happened in ex-Yugoslavia. In fact every single person in town hated her. Now, I live in the UK and have had three ladas, all of which were much better cars than many people give them credit for. 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! Last Update: . Parts are no problem, because it is basically a FIAT. It had a three way folding back seat back that could make multiple level shelves out of itself, you could haul a lot of stuff in that car. There are lots of related legacies connected with Americas brief, mad affair with the Yugo. Edit: Gah! The Tipo 145 was developed in the early 1970s (IIRC), and it showed. To see mine riding on a tow truck was so humiliating. But recycled steel, for whatever reason, is overly prone to corrosion. I think we need to re-evaluate the Yugo against 1986 standards instead of 2011 standards. 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. Second occurred during 1994-95, having changed employment by then, while driving the 50+ miles each morning, Id notice Yugos of different colors pass me on the four lane driven by the same fellow. She noted that while it wasnt much good past 65MPH (no overdrive), it never got less than 30MPG, and it handled beautifully. The Birdcage - Features a yellow Yugo Cabrio in Miami. After the death of Marshal Tito in 1980, long simmering Balkan feuds became a way of life and continue there to this day. It cut costs, and as was the concern then (as now) it was Green using the parlance of today. Complete with opera lamps and padded roof. So, they set about seeing what was what with a road-trip around Romania in three cars they would be testing. other small car offerings back then. 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. Before I moved to Atlanta in the early 90s, we sold off our other cars before moving. They sold boatloads of them in Europe to price buyers, taxi companies, retired folk etc. They were an object lesson in the old adage that you get what you pay for. Generally what kills them is the cost of major systems repairs, to where its not economically justifiable. 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. That's not what I'm about." 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. 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.) From the Subaru 360, to the SV1, to the Yugo, up to Chery, he followed the time-honored scammers credo of taking as much money as he could through charm and charisma, and when the going got tough and his shell-game started coming unraveled, he bailed with his loot and moved on to his next scam. There was something wrong with every single facet of this car. Reading in Consumer Reports that the tester injured his toe when the front seat came crashing down on it. The car itself staggered on until early 1992, with steadily declining sales and a dealer network that was slowly (and then quickly) going bankrupt. He was a statistician in the War Department who became interested in using statistical controls to produce higher-quality manufactured goods. Ive always had a soft spot for these little cars from Yugoslavia. In addition, many cars have changed hands by that timeand who knows what the previous owner may have had done? 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. Install shift knob on replacement car. Competing econoboxes included the Chevy Chevette,. But of course, a parking lot fender bender would be enough to total these cars. She put about 50,000 miles on it without a problem-it was scrapped when she got rear-ended by a Camry. 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. I know of no explanation for the garbage experience my dad had with his Audi, which broke down regularly. Even so, Kei cars remain too small to be accepted by American consumers. Modern kei cars are dimensionally similar to the old sidevalve english Fords tall and narrow hopefully they dont fall over as easily I see lots of elderly people driving used import keis here. 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. 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. Tye Mobile Homes in Tye, Texas using the incentive of Buy a mobile home at Tye Mobile Homes, get a new Yugo for $1. No joke. There was a dealer in Denver Colorado, called Apple Motors, who used to sell warmed up Yugos. It was like, when you get in, what is next to give out or give you trouble. The gravity powered it! The film also stars Neve Campbell, Jamie Lee Curtis, Casey Affleck, William Fichtner, Marcus Thomas, and Peter Dobson. In fact, if anything, Americas foreign policy in the 80s encouraged Yugoslavia to manufacture and export finished goods to pay its debts. depends 100% on very cheap parts and lots of mechanics around that know the car inside out. Unpaid claims included some warranty work done by dealers on Yugos before sales collapsed. Yup, Im gonna go for a ride in my Ford Fester., I mentioned Drowning Mona below, before I read this. 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. It turns out to be murder and Chief Wyatt Rash (DeVito) must investigate. But that's a whole other story.") I actually grew to like winding the snot out of that motor. But theres a difference between an easily-repaired car, and one that needs frequent repairs. To be said, Jasons book is 90% about Bricklin. Theyre really a mishmash of the two; with their own unique body. 5.0 out of 5 stars Drowning Mona music CD. Personally I would have gone for the Skoda. Nevermind that their cars are horribly unreliable, people still buy them. (Eagleburger had been U.S. ambassador to Yugoslvia and had spent almost all of his foreign service career in southeast europe. W. Edwards Deming was key in Japans metamorphosis from a backwards exporter of trinkets and junk to a source for amazingly-high-quality automobiles and electronics. All Rights Reserved. (At the same dealership on the window sticker above,actually). After 330,000km with two Yugos, I must be destined to eternal vacation on BOra-Bora . Had a Datsun King Cab twenty-odd years agoand I went parts-shopping in boneyards. And management, often put there through politics, has little interest in learning of customer dissatisfaction. 500 left in running condition? As my old profesor of economics said: War is the best economic valve Unfortunately, Ive learned that from personal experience. This car didnt want to go into reverse at a standstill. Also in that time, poor workmanship wasnt exclusively Yugos problem. Did it even come close? After the 1973 oil shock and protracted period of economic stagnation globally, Western markets had less incentive to buy anything from Yugoslavia. But then thats not what most folks are exactly looking for. With the pullout of Fiat, Renault and the British makes just a few years before,. Too many people in this country have this mentality that if its cheap, treat it as such and yes, a fulfilled prophesy. (Fiat DID design the chassis, after all.). But the acquisition by Fiat in 2010 renders all of that as ancient history. 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. There was a short in the headlights, and the switch for the engine cooling fan was broken both of which were easily fixed. In 1975, Subaru began offering AWD. The writer of Drowning Mona thought it would be hilarious to fill a 2000 crime caper with Yugo vehicles. 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. 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 70s Fiats look hand built. DROWNING MONA 1/2 Tasteless but sporadically uproarious black comedy. Do not sell my data 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 . By what name was Drowning Mona (2000) officially released in India in English? (not the 1st time Ive done this,haha). Why did so many Fiat designs get recycled and built behind the Iron Curtain? I saw one on the F4 so they did sell one.Those were a Polish Fiat 500 updated Just rubbish. But is an Audi as bad as a Yugo? I drove it in Atlanta rush hour traffic, it got about 40MPG and I grew to really like the little beast. Found it! 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. I remember the lights were tied to the ignition switch so if you left the light switch on, theyd go off when you shut down the car, and back on when you started it back up, and that meant headlights and all, ala SAAB. The base GV had a 1.1L, SOHC motor that originated in the Fiat 128 and the GVX had the 1.3L\, SOHC, motor, also from the Fiat 128 and I think it had the 5spd manual in it but the base GV got the 4spd manual. . Director Nick Gomez Writer Peter Steinfeld Stars Danny DeVito Bette Midler Neve Campbell Always. Renault has been in state ownership since the 50s, and has been a very profitable company. A lot of Wehrmacht occupation troops went home in tiny little pieces because Zastava knew what they were doing. -Because they have already been through hell. 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. 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 ? 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. Every character's automobile has personalized plates. Danny Devito and Bette Midler starred together in "Ruthless People". Money was a problem; but not the root problem. Also, the GM Colonades from 73-77 were pretty rust resistant as well. (function waitGEO() { . Initially, I had my eyes set on a mid 80s Toyota Celica as the cheapest car I could find. Malcom Bricklin The twice bankrupt Bricklin has resurfaced periodically over the years, always pushing the latest crack brained scheme to sell a car that would occupy the place that his Yugo once did- the bottom rung of the American market. You could disassemble the whole car with like 5 Allen keys, three sockets and two Phillips-head screwdrivers, if you were inclined. Since my father was born in Vukovar and some of our family still lives in Croatia it was of great interest to me. Motor Trend reported that their hand picked press ringer broke down during testing. i found this article about the space: 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. This may seem shocking, but Yugos really dont rust badly. But, its a tough sell to have someone take a car thats running fine, and pay $500 for a maintenance replacement and maybe screw something up in the process. The Proton is only a Malaysian Mitsubishi exactly the same awful car Hyundai built as trhe EXCEL. People who took care of some basic maintenance and corrosion protection could see 10 to 15 years of service without too much trouble. I bought a used, year-old Yugo. Anyway, the employee joked that it even had the rear window warmer to keep your hands warm when pushing it. Its not too late! *cough cough*, Malcolm is now wanting to import Chinese cars. if (window['UnicI'].geo === 'CA') { Very easy installation 15 t0 20 minutes. View Cars. Like all good European cars used to do, it came with its own tool kit and (owner) service manual. Every vehicle in town that is not a truck is a Yugo, except the police cruisers, which are Plymouth Horizons. Or maybe not. 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. Not sure they sold very many. And if it WAS done, thats $500 WASTED. With just 25 horsepower (at a cacophonous 5500 RPM), the elfin 360 was the type of cynical exercise that would define Bricklins career in the car business. Wait, how am I still driving 24,000 reliable miles a year on a 28 year old yugo, if this article is accurate? As for the first gen Civics and to a lesser extent, the second gen Civics, I would guess where we dont have rust to deal with, it was 30+ years and many accrued miles that ultimately were their demise, ie, 200K-300K+ and a head gasket finally blows are what killed them off eventually if not an accident or some other mechanical failure due to age/mileage. Every vehicle in town that is not a truck is a Yugo, except the police cruisers, which are Plymouth Horizons. Yes they were cheap, but it was a proper car, built properly. You are my inhalation, I own few blogs and infrequently run out from brand :). The chief is not rash, but fairly level-headed as he patiently sorts his way through a case that seems to reduce itself to a series of bar fights dimly remembered by drunks. . 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. If Germany had built it, would it have been called the Germ? Usually, these ultra-cheapo cars suffer from goofy styling touches, but the Yugo comes off as pretty clean, which is all the more astonishing since its an original design where no body parts interchange with the Fiats upon which it was based. Could not resist seeing what a piece of crap would look like with no tin on the top. (https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2009/jan/14/cover/#) 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. You are right.I found it here: 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. Bricklin was kicked out in the first (of two) bankruptcies, true. Ladas were, and are, shite. After highway driving the gear would refuse to shift, like it overheated being in gear so long, it refused to move. I spotted the ones in the picture while out on a bike ride a few years ago. I shut it down to call a dealerand it wouldnt leave the parking spot under its own power. 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. The Kei cars, like European microcars in the 1950s and early 60s, made car ownership possible for the masses. 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. Warranty claims were dreadful. Actually, Perry did a much better job of it than I could have.