if (window['UnicI'].geo === 'EU') { The car itself rattled and shook upon starting. A quiet little in-joke indeed, but I mention it so the filmmakers will know their work was not in vain. Initially, I had my eyes set on a mid 80s Toyota Celica as the cheapest car I could find. Very easy installation 15 t0 20 minutes. finally blown up. 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. He was absolutely correct. I have NEVER burned out a clutchexcept on a Yugo. Dealers there are order-takers. 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. But like so much of his other stuff, the deal fell through. 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. The process, alone, of a car manufacturer as a unit of government, is suspect. Before I moved to Atlanta in the early 90s, we sold off our other cars before moving. Why are there so many Yugo in this movie? Bricklin often says that the first model year or so of production the cars were well assembled and then once Zastava saw the money they let things slip. there used to be a sign on the front that said visionary vehicles but that came down at least two years ago. Some Japanese automakers seem to have been surprisingly resistant to the latter; that was a major complaint of Yutaka Katayama at Nissan. 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. Soon we would have a whole line of Adams Family cars on the road! After the 1973 oil shock and protracted period of economic stagnation globally, Western markets had less incentive to buy anything from Yugoslavia. 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. From the start, Zastava resented the profit dealers made, and thought their expenses exorbitant. Zastava took over the American company. There where lots of Yugo's used in the movie, but this was my favorite scene. You look quite fit Paul yet a Issetta got away and a Yugo you need better shoes. A girl I hung out with in college had a Yugo. The cars WERE crap, you concede; and uncompetitive in a world market. At least in the old days I could see why the industry that does not want a cheap car to succeed, but whats the point now? its a beautiful nineteenth century townhouse that was redesigned combining the 19th century iron front with a modern glass setback. By the 90s Japan had it totally nailed. 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. I was scarred for her to be driving it. Also, familiarity is important in servicing a car.Lots of American mechanics wouldnt bother to learn the finer points of working on Yugos because there were so few of them and parts were slow to arrive when needed. Yes, a Deer. The only car known to have been blown off of the Mackinac Bridge. Its like almost any car; get to know its issues, and if you have the mechanical inclinations to deal with them, theyre pretty simple cars otherwise. i found this article about the space: There was a short in the headlights, and the switch for the engine cooling fan was broken both of which were easily fixed. GM had tried to buy Zastava in 2007, but the deal fell through. Yugo gave everybody in town one to have. 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. I dont buy junk to begin with, maintain them, and only have minimal issues with them. So there you have it. 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. 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 . Well, when someone drowns Mona (Bette Midler), it's almost a cause for celebration in the quiet, upstate New York town of Verplanck, whose one claim to fame - except Mona Dearly - is that it's a hotbed of Yugos. This was not a design fault, but like the Corvair, the company seriously underestimated the ability of the American motorist to neglect even basic maintenence. Honestly, I think Zastava should be commended for the amount of engineering they were able to do independently, modifying and developing Fiat cars. in Pasadena a couple of years ago. } Actually, Yugos timing belt is ~10$, and pretty easy to change. You are right.I found it here: Also, the factory refused to make design changes that were obviously needed and would have been simple to implement. The entire dashboard- I mean the WHOLE thing in RHD versions is a single piece of soft foam. There was a guy that was racing a Yugo in SCCA competition, but thats been a long time ago. 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. He lost his house, his fortuneAnd the dozens of Yugo GVs that he received as part of his settlement with his bankers. of record for a Yugo. Thanks for your first hand account ! 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. Drowning Mona | 2000 | PG-13 | - 5.5.5. 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. One time the keys were out and the car was still on and would not turn off. People who took care of some basic maintenance and corrosion protection could see 10 to 15 years of service without too much trouble. They were not standing still, by any means. -You know why Yugo drivers go to heaven? Which together would have theoretically allowed the Yugo to be more successful. Ah yes, I can see it now. But youre right that would mean being a business man and not a con-artist. Blue in color. 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. Ladas were, and are, shite. 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! Generally what kills them is the cost of major systems repairs, to where its not economically justifiable. The 360 was a Kei car, which took advantage of reduced taxes and insurance rates in Japan for cars less than three meters long with engines no more than 360cc in displacement. Introduced at an offer price of just under $1300 , the little Subaru made much of its over 60 MPG fuel economy and low cost of ownership. Any idea where the Fiat 128 stopped and the 127 started in 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. after about 30 years of having the car rust off of the frame. as long as you didnt try to get away with normal American car owner maintenance. 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. I was sure youd have had one. They were true babes in the woods, and they lacked the capital to deal with the investment and the costs of distributing cars. Dont forget, we had the Czech Skoda Estelle, the Russian Lada and the Polish FSO 125p all competing at the bottom of the market. 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. (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 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. Her brake lines had been cut. At first glance, the car looked up to date- Front wheel drive, rack and pinion steering, decent mileage. 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. Substandard seatbelt anchors, collapsing seats, hard starting, no starting, the list was endless. Membership also saw a similarly sharp increase, with over 1,800,000 in the same year (300,000 more than in 1970). 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. Old joke. 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 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. But of course, a parking lot fender bender would be enough to total these cars. 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. Only other thing it needed to be roadworthy was front tires. This was almost $1100 lower than the cheapest Chevy Sprint and lower than even the Hyundai Excel. 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 seats were quite comfy too- firm enough but still soft- and with a cotton upholstery that was miles away from the nylon stuff put in other cars of the era. I sold the car to a coworker of my BILs, who drove the car another three years before he totaled it. The last ones left in my hometown got a stay of execution when the city received a good number of Bosnian refugees in the 90s; many of them bought Yugos and got mobile for next to nothing since they knew how to keep them running. But they didnt have a CLUE. Another example of the high cost of low priced objects. They are also heavily used rather than background or minor action vehicles. Had a Datsun King Cab twenty-odd years agoand I went parts-shopping in boneyards. 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. @Zackman: No the real experience was driving that thing in Atlanta rush hour traffic at 80+ MPH. 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). Ironically, if he had stuck it out with Subaru for the long haul, he might have done a whole lot better for himself. I paid a lot of attention to new cars back then, and even then I dont know if I ever saw one. 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. readyGEO = true; To be sure, the car was primitive, even by 1980s standards. Make and modelMake and yearYearCategoryImportance/RoleDate added (new ones first)EpisodeAppearance (ep.+time, if avail. Do not sell my data In addition, many cars have changed hands by that timeand who knows what the previous owner may have had done? 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. Our narrative today is of a modern P.T. 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. The Proton is only a Malaysian Mitsubishi exactly the same awful car Hyundai built as trhe EXCEL. An older Yugo, since the car hasn't been manufactured since its country went out of business. Casey Affleck wore a blonde wig for this film. I have known folks like that too. Thus American drivers were introduced to the second worst car ever sold- the tiny, dangerously underpowered 360 from Subaru. I had always known these to be license-built versions of the 128. My best friend had for a brief time, a rusted 1980 Civic DX hatchback that ultimately blew out its 2 upper gears in the 5spd manual tranny that did it in even though his mechanic could not get the bolts out to replace the clutch due to rust. But before Bricklin made a virtue of safety, he all but made a mockery of same just a half decade before. And as any living myth, this one spreads into other areas as well: 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). He soon discovers that her death was no accident. She wrote something like, How cute, Ill be Lelo in her Yugo.. Although it shares some similarities with the Fiat 127, it is actually based on the much more advanced Autobianchi. Only with the threat of armed intervention by Nato and the UN is an uneasy peace maintained. I also have to say that state ownership does not always lead to poor business. 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. In The Film, for some inexplicable reason, everyone who lives in the Catskill area towns seems to drive a YUGO. I probably still have it somewhere. I bought a used, year-old Yugo. 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. Those brave revolutionaries almost single handedly redefine their market segment and leave an indelible mark on the industry itself. With the pullout of Fiat, Renault and the British makes just a few years before,. The 4 door one was a dodge omni, think it was a glh. 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 pampered and took extremely good care of it and maintained it very well, it just couldnt hold up to being pampered either. That means that all Yugos in this movie are from 1986. The local news interveiwed some and they were going for $4000 Id end up with used junk, but now I got a new import!. Danny DeVito and Neve Campbell appeared together again six years after the release of this film in another comedy "Relative Strangers "(2006). Could not resist seeing what a piece of crap would look like with no tin on the top. Its a Plymouth Horizon which,I guess,is the same as a Talbot Horizon. She picked them up for virtually nothing and was content with bare-bones transportation. \"Drowning Mona\" is bad . But after that i didnt have much trouble with it, ride wasnt too bad for such small car, power was adequate for normal driving (in fact, compared to my fathers beetle with 1200 cc and 34 HP, Yugo with 55 HP and such goodies like 5-speed gearbox and brake booster feels pretty quick). I would suggest you read Jason Vuics book on the Yugowhat he described the Yugo America advance men as finding, had little to do with shortages of raw materials. Everyone in Verplanck, N.Y., drives a 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. The mechanical bits all seemed OK, and no obvious leaks or other damage. It failed, of all places, on the Bonneville salt flats area in Utah. Especially on economy cars- Yugos often sold to High School girls, who would just turn up the stereo when their failure to add oil led to rod knocking. 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. 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. Even so, Kei cars remain too small to be accepted by American consumers. He was a statistician in the War Department who became interested in using statistical controls to produce higher-quality manufactured goods. 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