Learn how your comment data is processed. Based on the slightly larger Fiat 125, it was everything bad about a lada, but somehow worse. 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). (A former test site for the Yugo car company, we're told. 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. Danny DeVito and Neve Campbell appeared together again six years after the release of this film in another comedy "Relative Strangers "(2006). 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. State-owned auto companies or assembly plants, tend to have little to no feedback from end-user to management. 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. Although I tested it in the summer, the car sputtered and hesitated like it was cold. var readyGEO; Membership also saw a similarly sharp increase, with over 1,800,000 in the same year (300,000 more than in 1970). Mine was still only about a year old, so I was in denial about its performance. I saw this movie. I really dont think that anyone has a competitive advantage in rust resistance any more. Im guessing the sport badging is why the decimal point is so far to the right? 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. They were incredibly simple mechanically. I was amazed when I rode in one, expecting a bouncy distaster but encountering a surprisingly supple feel of the suspension. Any idea where the Fiat 128 stopped and the 127 started in the Yugo? 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. As a rule, Chrysler got worse as the 70s progressed where Ford and particularly GM got better. -Because they have already been through hell. In The Film, for some inexplicable reason, everyone who lives in the Catskill area towns seems to drive a YUGO. depends 100% on very cheap parts and lots of mechanics around that know the car inside out. I had always known these to be license-built versions of the 128. I could be wrong there; but a surprising number of parts, including the airbox and cables, the steering column, the drivetrain, are all direct or modified parts from the 128. In fact, it was through the good offices of Lawrence Eagleburger that all of the political red tape was navigated in order to make the project feasible. There are many causes for poor management. I would love to find one of those. Ive always had a soft spot for these little cars from Yugoslavia. ), it was quite good. It was owned by a gentleman named Dave Benton who claimed to be the former engineering manager for Yugo North America. 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. Yugo gave everybody in town one to have. It was embarrassing, mother never drove it again. Hell, he only paid something like $500 for a beater commuter car and this was in the late 1990s. He drove them all fast and hard which no doubt shortened their operational life. It was a much more reliable and simple design than the 128 engine in States bound Yugos. They are also heavily used rather than background or minor action vehicles. 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. Whats bad. Before I moved to Atlanta in the early 90s, we sold off our other cars before moving. It broke down like a Yugo. They dumped em, too, as soon as they could afford something, anything, better. The process, alone, of a car manufacturer as a unit of government, is suspect. The place where I used to work was given a Yugo 45. The next Yugo we were to get in the US, the Sana/Florida, showed even more independent development of a Fiat design by the Yugoslavs. 1987 brought about several other trims, the GVL, GVS, GVC,which were very similar other than the door panels and seat upholstery. Another example of the high cost of low priced objects. Initially, I had my eyes set on a mid 80s Toyota Celica as the cheapest car I could find. Malcolm Bricklin was one of those guys who is the quintessential P.T. They would swap in the drivetrain from the Fiat X1/9 and put on the wider wheels tires from the X1/9 also. For the rest of the scene, he is dry from the waist up. The Yugo was a far superior car compared against a Chevette, or first generation Hyundai. I really believe that the cars were treated as disposable, and in that way expectations were met. I sold the car to a coworker of my BILs, who drove the car another three years before he totaled it. I probably still have it somewhere. Parts were cheap due to the exchange rate, so there was not the pressure on dealers to deny problems and warranty claims, like Ford and Vauxhall put on their dealers. Quality (or a lack of same) would ensure that the car could not survive in a competitive marketplace. She had a habit of parking illegally, and, faced with a ticket and impound bill that exceeded her estimate of the value of the car, donated it to the towing company. Various ancillaries like alternators were replaced with real FIAT parts. Actually, from my experience with Yugo monocoque, four doors would have crushing effect on rigidity:). Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. But youre right that would mean being a business man and not a con-artist. Zastava took over the American company. Handling is sharp and the engine loves to rev. But the acquisition by Fiat in 2010 renders all of that as ancient history. 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! Kathleen Wilhoite (Lucinda) and Melissa McCarthy (Shirley) appeared on Gilmore Girls (2000). Trivia: As I understand it, Zastiva had the Yugo designed that way as its plan was, from the beginning, to export the car. I know there were folks who collected Yugos for nothing, for running and parts cars. And often wins. A Rolls-Royce Ghost, a Mercades S-class, and a Bently Mulsane. if (window['UnicI'].geo === 'CA') { Contact us Lucinda (Kathleen Wilhoite), the local garage mechanic, checks out the death vehicle and confirms the sheriff's suspicions: The car was rigged. He was a statistician in the War Department who became interested in using statistical controls to produce higher-quality manufactured goods. Every vehicle in town that is not a truck is a Yugo, except the police cruisers, which are Plymouth Horizons. View 9 images 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. I recall taking my younger brother out to teach him how to drive. So it worked pretty well in the domestic market, but USA is another story. An older Yugo, since the car hasn't been manufactured since its country went out of business. This has been true of: Renault in its government-ownership days; And, now, Government Motors, which is thumbing its nose at old GM customers who have warranty claims. (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 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. Of course not. 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. They obviously do not run. Thanks for telling it. . \"Drowning Mona\" is bad . This, the paring of weight, was even evident in Japanese trucks. Of course a $800 car isnt worth shyte to the insurance company, so they gave me a token $1000 for my time and trouble (another story). I saw one parked on Colorado Blvd. 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. I cant recall reading anything positive about the vehicle, anywhere. The Mopar fuselage cars were not too bad, but the 71 on up B bodies were not so good. 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? 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. Drowning Mona is a 2000 American crime comedy film starring Danny DeVito as Wyatt Rash, a local police chief from Verplanck, New York, who investigates the mysterious death of Mona Dearly ( Bette Midler ), a spiteful, hard-drinking, loud-mouthed, abusive woman, hated by all who knew her, who drove her son's car off a cliff and drowned in a river. Even though the price was a come on (dealers larded as many options onto the car as they could get away with, see below), America was hooked. You mentioned this before; itd make a great article. Rated PG-13 Sloppy or ignorant engineering plays a part most times; but its MANAGEMENT thats supposed to identify problems and stop them as soon as possible. Ive been around big rigs all of my life, but they never looked bigger than when I was next to them on the freeway. How did Danny DeVito die in Drowning Mona? 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. I think youre a bit dismissive of Zastava. Needless to say, it wouldve been better if Bently had just gone ahead and let them have the Mulsanne. 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. 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. Since my father was born in Vukovar and some of our family still lives in Croatia it was of great interest to me. After 330,000km with two Yugos, I must be destined to eternal vacation on BOra-Bora . 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.) alignments. The man is Malcom Bricklin. What is the purpose of door release handles if they break right away (they appeared to be bendable plastic molded around a paper clip), and how did they ever get installed in the first place if they didnt work to begin with? 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. Even getting touring car legend Peter Brock to put his name to a Deluxe Limited Edition wasnt enough to help sales. I think we need to re-evaluate the Yugo against 1986 standards instead of 2011 standards. The car she is driving is a Yugo, and the pic's locale is Verplanck, New York (north of New York City), that actually was a test market for the ill-fated economy car in the late 1970's. . The Proton is only a Malaysian Mitsubishi exactly the same awful car Hyundai built as trhe EXCEL. Not a bit ! 459 tweaks (and 18 months) later, the Yugo was almost ready for launch. When the nastiest resident (Bette Midler) of a white-trash Westchester suburb is killed in a suspicious accident, everyone Change Ad Consent Always. Did it even come close? Danny DeVito and Bette Midler appeared in Ruthless People (1986). Its avoidable with regular replacement, true. "Drowning Mona" is a frustrating comedy. 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. Second factor was, the popularity in the day of recycled steel in car manufacture. 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. The best part was they all had the same license plates on them to just have a semblance of legality! About a year or so into owning the blue one, the clutch cable snapped (in traffic, of course). But there was one area that, frankly, I was impressed with, and that was the basic two-box design. But is an Audi as bad as a Yugo? I have often wondered why Bricklin didnt try to make a ploy for the tooling to be set up in a higher quality shop. @ahight: I think there is no need to put the location square in every screenshot, only the ones with more than a single car visible. Edit: Gah! This was almost $1100 lower than the cheapest Chevy Sprint and lower than even the Hyundai Excel. No tinted glass or glove compartment. Well, as they say, two out of three aint bad. Me and my friend Jerry (from Sam Bonds) drove a Yugo at a wrecker yard in Coburg some years back. These rear engined devices were a blast to drive, with tail-out shenanigans a-la Porsche 911 being easy to emulate. There were surely other goofs that were institutionalized. 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. 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. Thank you for the history, it complements the story of the car well. But recycled steel, for whatever reason, is overly prone to corrosion. 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. 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.) The two-door chassis is, I understand, a 127. This car had one genuine asset: ride quality. The Little SuBARu Wow!, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLPp-NFInXw. My favorite memory was the NYC art exhibit where every sculpture was created from the remains of an old Yugo. Yugo America The importer of the eponymous car that had been the talk of the industry just a few years earlier filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation in 1991. [SOUNDBITE - clip from Drowning Mona trailer, 2000] Every car in the movie, save for the police vehicle and a main character's landscaping pickup, is a . However, the 67 cu inch motor had plenty of power if you kept it revved, and I never really had a problem keeping up with traffic. Everyone in Verplanck, N.Y., drives a Yugo. It was 10 years old in Japan at the time. Dispose of the rest of the car. The characters this time could be lightened up and dumbed-down versions of the confused drunks in "Laws of Gravity," their social lives centered on bars, their center of gravity the bartender. My dad is a bit of a FIAT nut so he would wrench on it from time to time. FWIWYugo wasnt named for Yugoslavia, but its a phonetic of the name Jugo which is what the Mediterranean wind is called in their language. Once the carb was replaced with a Weber instead of the Zastava kinda sorta copy with 3 miles of vacuum hose it ran and started a lot better. People who took care of some basic maintenance and corrosion protection could see 10 to 15 years of service without too much trouble. I knew a guy in the 90s, who was very smart (the grandson of a Nobel Prize winner in fact!) 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. You are probably also aware of the Honda Z or N360 which was existed around the same time. Renault has been in state ownership since the 50s, and has been a very profitable company. The early Japanese cars were not that different from the 360: Junk. The last Yugo that we would recognize rolled off the assembly line in November 2008. I cant think of another car that disappeared off the roads faster. I bought a used, year-old Yugo. 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. So, with connections, he was brought to Japan for a series of lectures; and if America wasnt interested, Japan was very much so. Many years later I saw it, and her, driving down a street near my house. See production, box office & company info, Siskel & Ebert: Drowning Mona/My Dog Skip/What Planet Are You From?/The Next Best Thing/Miss Julie. I had been driving a Datsun 200 SX and the 5 speed was like silk. The only car known to have been blown off of the Mackinac Bridge. Reviewed in . *cough cough*, Malcolm is now wanting to import Chinese cars. The first year all those repairs were paid for, so it wasnt as miserable then. 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. 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. 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. Or wasting half a grand. Just as quickly as the Yugo ascended to number two in european import sales, the car plummeted back to earth and never rose again. An accident has happened - the Yugo of one Mona Dearly has careened off the highway and plunged into the Hudson. 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. (not the 1st time Ive done this,haha). When the Yugo GV was finally offered for sale in September 1985, (as an 86 model) , initial orders looked promising. It helps to understand that everyone in Verplanck is dim to one degree or another, except for the Rash family. 1. I have known folks like that too. NEVER Give Up - NEVER Back Down Encountering a surprisingly supple feel of the Honda Z or N360 which was existed around the same awful car built... Probably also aware of the high cost of low priced objects initial orders looked promising way expectations were met two-door... 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