[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 . I know another-a lifelong car nut, married to another can nut. I actually grabbed a brochure on the convertible as a joke, it was only a single page. If I remember correctly, the car was equipped with all the usual goodies a Fiat engine with dual Webers, full roll cage, sticky racing tires, etc. Purchased one year old cars for less than $1500 while attending college. The sexy Marsha Brady girl with the bellbottoms in the Subaru commercials is unforgettable. They dumped em, too, as soon as they could afford something, anything, better. One time the keys were out and the car was still on and would not turn off. In 1969, Subaru started producing a larger, much more traditional (well, mostly) car, the 1000. 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 other being Yugo / Zastava missing out on producing a smaller model based on the Autobianchi A112 as a replacement for the Zastava 750, initially carrying over the existing Fiat 100 Series engines prior to using the Fiat FIRE engines. But what about quality disasters in a different scenario? That said, the most maintenance I did on the car(s) were oil changes and other mundane regular maintenance. Did it even come close? Actions lie louder than words. by Carolyn Wells. After the wars, Zastava redesigned their cars with help from Fiat and Citroen, and gained new technologies to have them compete with other European cars. 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. Anyway, the employee joked that it even had the rear window warmer to keep your hands warm when pushing it. But, I decided that going back into the printing business made more sense to me, so I left the car lot and headed back to what I call work. . The worst of the Japaneese cars would rust in structural places that would make the car unsafe. You know, we have a joke here in ex-Yugoslavia about Yugo: 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. Nevermind that their cars are horribly unreliable, people still buy them. Wait, how am I still driving 24,000 reliable miles a year on a 28 year old yugo, if this article is accurate? @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. Mine was still only about a year old, so I was in denial about its performance. He was absolutely correct. They were true babes in the woods, and they lacked the capital to deal with the investment and the costs of distributing cars. 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. Bracket racing, of course. I took all of the fun stuff off of the red one (Italian Cromodora wheels and the AM/FM Cassette) and put it on the blue one. 2004-2023 IMCDb.org Managed by Controgest SPRL It helps to understand that everyone in Verplanck is dim to one degree or another, except for the Rash family. The battery required water to be poured into it. This is the real reason that Yugo failed in the US- a poor dealer network. She picked them up for virtually nothing and was content with bare-bones transportation. Based on the slightly larger Fiat 125, it was everything bad about a lada, but somehow worse. 1) Wise observation that Yugoslavia needed hard currency (without which it could not import needed consumer or industrial goods) during those years. I had the car 18 months or so, when in traffic one day a DUI driver rammed his Ford Fiesta (of all things) into the back of my Yugo and pushed me into a Nissan Maxima. At our Year 2000 track day at Lime Rock, one of the entries was a race-prepared Yugo. Make and modelMake and yearYearCategoryImportance/RoleDate added (new ones first)EpisodeAppearance (ep.+time, if avail. France, to use your example, had a protected market with tariffs on American cars (disguised as a horsepower tax). Ford was really hit and miss the Granada was horrible, but the Lincoln Town Cars and Mark Vs were pretty good against the tinworm. Drowning Mona - An explanation informs viewers that the setting (Verplanck, New York) was a test market for Yugos. But then my wife (of all people) found a Yugo for $800. The first Mazda was also a kei-car, the R-360. lol, Yugos were marketed in USA 1985 to 1990 by Malcolm Bricklin's vehicle imports Firm. 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 ignition constantly gave out and so did the clutch. Zastava Zastava made Yugos even after they stopped selling in America. What kind of car is in the movie Drowning Mona? I have only seen one Yugo in my life. I would love to find one of those. Very entertaining. Personally I would have gone for the Skoda. I initially got a job selling cars, and had access to one for a while. There are heaps of suspects ranging from her husband, her son, her son's friend, her son's friend's fiance and so on. Why Fiat? Even getting touring car legend Peter Brock to put his name to a Deluxe Limited Edition wasnt enough to help sales. That's not what I'm about." Malcolm Bricklin was one of those guys who is the quintessential P.T. He got two large import operations going and he launched the SV-1. Our narrative today is of a modern P.T. (not the 1st time Ive done this,haha). Kei cars still exist, but the engine size and dimensional standards have been increased somewhat, and the newer Kei cars tend to be very tall, boxy affairs to create the maximum possible cubic footage of interior room within the package limits. In fact, if anything, Americas foreign policy in the 80s encouraged Yugoslavia to manufacture and export finished goods to pay its debts. 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). People's spotty memories and clumsy lies complicate the investigation, and the . Joe Friday (Dan Aykroyd) had a gold one in the Dragnet movie. 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 ? Appologies for not-nice-said, but there is no other way to do it. document.getElementById("unic-ccpa").style.display = 'inline'; The last Yugo I saw was 12 years ago, parked by a gas station in Truckee oh, and a restored Yugo was for sale on Craigslist a bit ago but I figured that would be a bad idea on the Subaru front: I heard a rumor, years ago, that Fuji bought all the American 360s and had them crushed any truth to that? Nude beaches usually are deprived of sexual context. 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. 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. Youre welcome here anytime ! Danny DeVito and Neve Campbell appeared together again six years after the release of this film in another comedy "Relative Strangers "(2006). But is an Audi as bad as a Yugo? Although I tested it in the summer, the car sputtered and hesitated like it was cold. As a rule, Chrysler got worse as the 70s progressed where Ford and particularly GM got better. Someone wanted her dead. })(); Pictures are property of movie companies owner of the respective movies. As my old profesor of economics said: War is the best economic valve Unfortunately, Ive learned that from personal experience. They had other third-world markets in mind. I frankly dont know how anything this poor could ever be made. These are the kinds of people who don't like to be thrown out of bars because it's a loss of valuable drinking time. IIRC, when hers finally died, she said that she tried to find another but couldnt. He sat in the front seat once and never again! I attach a picture of a 1100,the previous model,(5 door too! 3) The Yugo has a good reputation in the land of its birth. Even here in the Land That Rust Forgot, I rarely see anything from the 70s. The gravity powered it! 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. As to Bricklin, Ive always liked of liked the SV-1 and wish Id picked one up when they were really cheap, with the AMC 360 they could be made to really move! I dont know if I was lucky (twice) or if my mechanical aptitude allowed me to save the cars I owned. I bought it in January because I figured it would be fun to see just how bad it could be. When the Yugo GV was finally offered for sale in September 1985, (as an 86 model) , initial orders looked promising. Good account. But these Yugos aren't just a frivolous component of the storythey're essential to establishing the wacky tone of the film. } I shut it down to call a dealerand it wouldnt leave the parking spot under its own power. Renault has been in state ownership since the 50s, and has been a very profitable company. When they came unglued from rot, there was no there there to support the structure. R/S AUTOLINE INC. (1.3 miles away) 1215 W IMPERIAL HWY, Suite 213, BREA, CA 92821. I cant imagine that anybody that test drove one like mine actually laid down real money for one. Another example of the high cost of low priced objects. 2. Like you can buy a car without a transmition. Unscrew the shift knob. http://www.observer.com/2010/culture/wannabe-warhol?page=0, I have two things to share concerning Yugos, Bette Midler drove one in the movie Drowning Mona. 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. (We also wanted to stick a finger in the eye of the USSR, which was at odds with Yugoslavia anyway). But like so much of his other stuff, the deal fell through. The Yugo? The cars WERE crap, you concede; and uncompetitive in a world market. I guess this is so the company could find out how the car is before releasing it to the general public. You are right.I found it here: I had two of them. They obviously do not run. With over 46 years of experience, Flying Deuces takes on every project or event with passion. 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. 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. An accident has happened - the Yugo of one Mona Dearly has careened off the highway and plunged into the Hudson. I put about 20K miles on it per year. Amazingly, someone got in it, started it, and it ran and drove (more or less) away. 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. 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. They were incredibly simple mechanically. 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. I wonder why they used the Yugos, To show the towns Quirkyness? Many wars (holocausts, massacres) are blamed on religion, I can understand why some people no longer believe. 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. Jeff might have wanted to kill her. 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. The little cars--all Yugos--are almost identical; they only differ in color, and Rona's has a sunroof. Why did so many Fiat designs get recycled and built behind the Iron Curtain? Visit Dealer Website. Yugoslavia was in the state of bankruptcy at that time, import of all goods and raw materials was practically halted. I wonder if he actually carried that threat out, and if his daughter ever forgave him if he did. Some dinosaur relic, Id never seen before. Reading in Consumer Reports that the tester injured his toe when the front seat came crashing down on it. 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