That means that all Yugos in this movie are from 1986. 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. I bought a used, year-old Yugo. To be said, Jasons book is 90% about Bricklin. I saw it on the Helena streets quite a lot, but it was the only one in the city. Bracket racing, of course. (As you said JustPassinThru). readyGEO = true; Critically, one of her co-workers loved Fiats, and he taught her their quirks-most of which the Yugo shared. There are, to be fair, other theories about how Jeff (Marcus Thomas) lost his hand, although in every scenario he was reaching for a beer. I didnt mind helping friends and neighbor with problems they had with their cars. Ladas were, and are, shite. The battery required water to be poured into it. Did it even come close? @Zackman: No the real experience was driving that thing in Atlanta rush hour traffic at 80+ MPH. Enterior wall panels were thin cardboard with painted on carpet flecks. I also have to say that state ownership does not always lead to poor business. 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. The car is the Yugo. He lost his house, his fortuneAnd the dozens of Yugo GVs that he received as part of his settlement with his bankers. The Yugo was a far superior car compared against a Chevette, or first generation Hyundai. I was listening one Saturday to Car Talk and one of the callers that day to the show was a Catholic priest who drove a Yugo and commented on all the flak he received for his choice of automotive transportation. Audis have been headaches to owners at various times. 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. Yes you read that right. I recall seeing the garage full of yugos being worked on when Id take mine in and I recall seeing them dead on the side of the road everywhere. Assuming the gentleman was telling the truth, this has to be some kind It is difficult to overstate how rustprone 1970s Japaneese cars were. In the end, its poor management. But then my wife (of all people) found a Yugo for $800. We heard of the Yugo here far away in South Africa, but now I know how it all came about and fell apart. Much embarrassment was caused to Toyota when it was found domestic panels had been mistakenly exported to NZ for local assembly we keep cars forever and these rusted out under a year on local limestone based and cowshit covered roads. But like so much of his other stuff, the deal fell through. Why are there so many Yugo in this movie? 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. Id love to hear what they thought a year later. 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. The New Brunswick government pulled the plug in September of 1975 and the Bricklin was finished. I saw one parked on Colorado Blvd. Money was a problem; but not the root problem. I attach a picture of a 1100,the previous model,(5 door too! It's a movie that has an attitude problem it couldn't resolve as easily as it did the mystery to Mona's death. Two Yugo episodes: The first while working on a construction crew in the 1987-88 period, at a project west of Rochester, NY one morning a Yugo rolls onto the lot, out pops a nervous, typical pocket-protector young engineering type, tells us he is out of gas, could anyone give him a ride to his job.at Kodak! Big deal, huh? Even in Western Europe, cars arent marketed as they are here. Substandard seatbelt anchors, collapsing seats, hard starting, no starting, the list was endless. The worst of the Japaneese cars would rust in structural places that would make the car unsafe. Ford uses a similar shade on their Mustangs of recent vintage and still love it even now. Do not sell my data There was a guy that was racing a Yugo in SCCA competition, but thats been a long time ago. 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. Jason Torchinsky of Jalopnik had an interesting take on it lately; Make and modelMake and yearYearCategoryImportance/RoleDate added (new ones first)EpisodeAppearance (ep.+time, if avail. I actually grabbed a brochure on the convertible as a joke, it was only a single page. 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. Or inherrent underdog status? People who took care of some basic maintenance and corrosion protection could see 10 to 15 years of service without too much trouble. who collected Yugos for pennies on the dollar and used the collection as a parts supply to keep ONE of them running. 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. And when longtime resident Mona Dearly (BETTE MIDLER) drove her Yugo into the river to her death, no one really seemed to care. Blue in color. I dont buy junk to begin with, maintain them, and only have minimal issues with them. The Yugos are a literal running joke throughout the movie. They probably would have found a customer base in the U.S. Even those of us raised on rusting U.S. cars from the 60s were surprised by how fast the Japaneese stuff vaporized. In a totalitarian state, such as was Yugoslavia, there is no political embarrassment because criticism is a criminal offense. Kathleen Wilhoite (Lucinda) and Melissa McCarthy (Shirley) appeared on Gilmore Girls (2000). There where lots of Yugo's used in the movie, but this was my favorite scene. 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 interior was fading right from day one. Just started slipping, on a highway as flat as a calm oceanand over the next five hours I had to shift into lower and lower gears just to minimize slippage. 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. Why did so many Fiat designs get recycled and built behind the Iron Curtain? Bricklin was kicked out in the first (of two) bankruptcies, true. These rear engined devices were a blast to drive, with tail-out shenanigans a-la Porsche 911 being easy to emulate. Of course, not wanting to be associated with alleged members of the alleged Romanian Mafia, Bently pulled out. Id notice the original Civic CVCC, I had one, loved it and sold it much too soon. At Zastava, these were foreign. I dont know if I was lucky (twice) or if my mechanical aptitude allowed me to save the cars I owned. 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. 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. A few things come to mind regarding the Yugo / Zastava Koral (and larger Yugo / Zastava Skala), mainly that it is a pity it never received similar developments such as 5-door hatchback, 2/4-door saloon and 3/5-door estate bodystyles as found on other Fiat 127-based variants like the SEAT 127 / SEAT Frua and Fiat 147 / Fiat Oggi / Fiat Panorama, along with larger 1372-1596cc+ versions of the Fiat SOHC engine. If Germany had built it, would it have been called the Germ? But they didnt have a CLUE. Fuji was pretty well aware that the car wasnt suitable for America circa 1969. I knew a guy in the 90s, who was very smart (the grandson of a Nobel Prize winner in fact!) You had to know FIATS and and what Yugo klooged up to meet EPA regs and how to unklooge it. 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. FSO 125P: The last Yugo that we would recognize rolled off the assembly line in November 2008. I owned two. depends 100% on very cheap parts and lots of mechanics around that know the car inside out. She was rather negligent about maintenance, so would have been tough on any vehicle, but her Yugo, like many of its kind, fell apart rather quickly, stressing a budget that was already tight. But Bricklin assured his erstwhile investors that the car could be made ready for the U.S. market with some minor tweaks. 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. But theres a difference between an easily-repaired car, and one that needs frequent repairs. Or maybe not. Otoko wa tsurai yo: Torajiro wagamichi wo yuku, Otoko wa tsurai yo: Naniwa no koi no Torajir, http://www.highwayone.com/Classifieds/Yugo/GreenYugoCab.html, I'd like to own a yugo some day. I assume some were worse than others, but Ive heard this complaint levied against such a broad range of cars (American, Japanese, Italian, British, even German) of that era that I have to wonder if there was some sort of fire sale on water-soluble steel. He drove them all fast and hard which no doubt shortened their operational life. Joe Friday (Dan Aykroyd) had a gold one in the Dragnet movie. } There are like 100 YUGOs in the movie, which I think came out around 1998. With Danny DeVito, Bette Midler, Neve Campbell, Jamie Lee Curtis, Casey Affleck, Peter Dobson, Will Ferrell, William Fichtner, Raymond O'Connor, Marcus Thomas and . As I understand it, Zastiva had the Yugo designed that way as its plan was, from the beginning, to export the car. Other than the time the clutch cable broke, and getting the electrical issues sorted out, the car spent no time in the shop. The cars in the movie were provided by Apple Motors in Denver, Colorado. and lso two Horizon ? Its a Plymouth Horizon which,I guess,is the same as a Talbot Horizon. 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. Doug DeMuro joyfully reviewed one a couple of years ago. 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