Drowning Mona - An explanation informs viewers that the setting (Verplanck, New York) was a test market for Yugos. I had very good support for the Yugo as Atlanta is the home of Bayless, which is a big Fiat parts house. Of course, I was charmed by that, as it reminded me very much of the original A1 Golf, and seemed to share the same utility that the original A1 did. Contact us Witness the fact that everyone's car of choice is a Yugo; each Verplanck citizen drives one ever since the company conducted a cheap sales test of the vehicle there some 10 years ago. Soon we would have a whole line of Adams Family cars on the road! (Eagleburger had been U.S. ambassador to Yugoslvia and had spent almost all of his foreign service career in southeast europe. I have often wondered why Bricklin didnt try to make a ploy for the tooling to be set up in a higher quality shop. After the death of Marshal Tito in 1980, long simmering Balkan feuds became a way of life and continue there to this day. American Brands: AMC, Jeep and All Others, Tractors, Lawn Mowers, Off-Road Equipment, Automotive History The Jokes On U.S.- The Short, Wild Ride Of The Yugo In America, TOAL:1974(?) 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. These rear engined devices were a blast to drive, with tail-out shenanigans a-la Porsche 911 being easy to emulate. Source for information on Drowning Mona: VideoHound's Golden Movie . The problem here was, first, poor management, as I noted; second, a workplace culture and a national culture that was absolute authoritarianism. Although I tested it in the summer, the car sputtered and hesitated like it was cold. I frankly dont know how anything this poor could ever be made. Pictures provided by: garco, antp, ahight, Display options: Display as images Display as list 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. So it worked pretty well in the domestic market, but USA is another story. They are also heavily used rather than background or minor action vehicles. And the opening of China and competition from S Korea in a way ate Yugos lunch in the global market. Trivia: 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. Danny DeVito (Chief Wyatt Rash) and Tracey Walter (Clarence) appeared in Matilda (1996). Why Fiat? The Bricklin SV-1 was remembered for several interesting features: lurid (safety) colors , no cigarette lighter (Bricklin was a rabid non-smoker) , and most importantly, the ability to vacuum piles of money from the gullible government of New Brunswick, Canada. finally blown up. 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. As it turns out, the same rental car place was STILL selling surplus Yugos, and I bought a blue one this time. Fuji was pretty well aware that the car wasnt suitable for America circa 1969. Yes they were cheap, but it was a proper car, built properly. 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? I think that for a 1992 car (perhaps it should be a Serb-o? As for the FloridaBricklin was itching to bring it in. An automatic wouldnt fit in the Yugo engine bay, so the only thing shiftless about the Yugo would be the Zastava workers that routinely drank on the job. Make and modelMake and yearYearCategoryImportance/RoleDate added (new ones first)EpisodeAppearance (ep.+time, if avail. Thank you for the interesting history. Cool Cruise CAR SHOW Cruisin' Brea CAR SHOW Cruisin' La Verne CAR SHOW Brea Holiday CAR SHOW Project Home America Flying Deuces is a production, marketing, booking and advertising company. I know of a 1979 Datsun pickup that completly rusted out in 6 years. setTimeout(waitGEO, 200); This article, like many here, evoked some fond memories. Too many people in this country have this mentality that if its cheap, treat it as such and yes, a fulfilled prophesy. 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. They were an object lesson in the old adage that you get what you pay for. For Some Thematic Elements, Language and Brief Sexuality, Berlinale 2023 Highlights, Part Two: Reality, Manodrome, The Adults, Inside, Golda, Angela Bassett, Jamie Lee Curtis, Brendan Fraser, Cate Blanchett, Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson Feted at SBIFF 2023, Revisiting Martin Scorsese's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Tragically Common: Jamie Dack, Lily McInerny and Jonathan Tucker on Palm Trees and Power Lines. During lunch the high schoolers came out and lifted it up so the front tires were up on the sidewalk. Mine was 5 years old and had like 40K miles on it. Drowning Mona is basically a comic murder-mystery. Generally what kills them is the cost of major systems repairs, to where its not economically justifiable. What am I supposed to make outta that? What kind of car is in the movie Drowning Mona? 3. FSO 125P: Actually, the GM B body starting in 1977 was very, very resistant to corrosion. AMC, in its last years, went so far as to have Ziebart license its procedure for use in the factory. And management, often put there through politics, has little interest in learning of customer dissatisfaction. I think youre a bit dismissive of Zastava. Amidst mutual finger pointing, the deal collapsed in July 2008 as the erstwhile partners took turns suing one another in federal court. Every vehicle in town that is not a truck is a Yugo, except the police cruisers, which are Plymouth Horizons. the building is used several times a month for exclusive private hip-hop dance parties. An older Yugo, since the car hasn't been manufactured since its country went out of business. And it was reasonably fast for a car with such a small displacement engine. Yes you read that right. 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. It had become commonplace in the 1950s; and manufacturers first tried ignoring the problem; then dealing with it with superficial fixes like Zincrometal body panels. 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. Zastava only collapsed in 2008, and its decline was NOT due to mismanagement, but the trade embargo on Serbia, which starved them of devlopment funds. lol, Yugos were marketed in USA 1985 to 1990 by Malcolm Bricklin's vehicle imports Firm. I knew a guy in the 90s, who was very smart (the grandson of a Nobel Prize winner in fact!) R/S AUTOLINE INC. (1.3 miles away) 1215 W IMPERIAL HWY, Suite 213, BREA, CA 92821. In the 1970s the PCI (Italian Communist Party) reached its all-time maximum electorally: 34.4% in the 1976 general election (12,600,000 votes, 3 million more than in the previous election in 1972). I cant imagine that anybody that test drove one like mine actually laid down real money for one. . Mona Dearly: Yeah? It was so bad we couldnt even get it to start, so we took a few parts off it and then the scrap yard came and took it away. 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. I remember listening to Car Talk some 5-6 years ago and a caller came on and said that his Yugo (an 87 I think) died at 150,000 miles, not due to mechanical failure, but due to a Deer. I initially got a job selling cars, and had access to one for a while. I bought a used, year-old Yugo. Ford was really hit and miss the Granada was horrible, but the Lincoln Town Cars and Mark Vs were pretty good against the tinworm. @Jeff Nelson: I think youre a bit dismissive of Zastava, they have been around for quite some time. 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. Here is the text that opens Drowning Mona before we see the first shot: I had always known these to be license-built versions of the 128. Two YUGO watches, new. I may know the only satisfied Yugo owner in the U.S. 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. Not sure they sold very many. He was scarred sh*tless and begging me to not make him drive it. Yugos are cars. i doubt they are still there. It would take about eight years from apparent problem to engineered fix to failure of the fix and another engineered solution. 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 have NEVER burned out a clutchexcept on a Yugo. They would swap in the drivetrain from the Fiat X1/9 and put on the wider wheels tires from the X1/9 also. It is a measure of the local intelligence that when the car and driver are dragged to shore some hours later, the doctor checks her pulse. 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. 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. The body and car belonging to Kiely Rodni, a missing 16-year-old girl, may have been found in a Califronia lake on Sunday, according to a search and rescue group. IIRC, when hers finally died, she said that she tried to find another but couldnt. Sure some of the plastic trim was suspect, but dont forget that GM was still doing rubbermaid doors then, and the Japanese were still stapling vinyl over cardboard for door trims. He got two large import operations going and he launched the SV-1. Your experience was exactly what my suspicions were about these cars. But they did. I saw one not long ago on the streets in Eugene, but couldnt catch it., Theres got to be a comeback there! Even here in the Land That Rust Forgot, I rarely see anything from the 70s. And incompetence does not negate the political reasons, until and unless the failure of management becomes an unavoidable political embarrassment. Wyatt finds no shortage of suspects. It would be interesting to see how the rear suspension was beefed up. He was rather sad that after 170,000 miles it had The early Japanese cars were not that different from the 360: Junk. Or wasting half a grand. In the 70s when I lived in Boston, I worked with a guy whose 5-year-old Pinto had big holes in the doors. Anyway, the employee joked that it even had the rear window warmer to keep your hands warm when pushing it. The Florida was reviewed very positively in the UK against western cars, and sadly only failed here because of the rise of Fascism in Yugoslavia, and its aftermath. I dont know if I was lucky (twice) or if my mechanical aptitude allowed me to save the cars I owned. The biggest thing Ive heard was the timing belts were supposedly good for 30K miles and many owners were caught off guard, mostly due to not reading and/or heeding the maintenance intervals and boom, they croaked as they were not non interference motors like most OHC motors arent. Personally I would have gone for the Skoda. Rona Mace (Jamie Lee Curtis) is an anagram for "a romance". Copyright 2011 - 2023 Curbside Classics. 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. What do you call a Yugo with twin exhausts? I wonder if he actually carried that threat out, and if his daughter ever forgave him if he did. 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? I guess the major issue in my favor was the relatively inexpensive parts when I did need them, and the fact that Georgia is semi-arid, so no rust issues. He sat in the front seat once and never again! Todays story, though, has nothing to do with anybody like that. The Italian Government and the Unions forced Fiat to cooperate. 3) The Yugo has a good reputation in the land of its birth. (function waitGEO() { Vehicle used a lot by a main character or for a long time, Vehicle used by a character or in a car chase, Minor action vehicle or used in only a short scene. The problem is, there's not a single person in town who DIDN'T have a motive. Every vehicle in town that is not a truck is a Yugo, except the police cruisers, which are Plymouth Horizons. (* 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). Mine was still only about a year old, so I was in denial about its performance. 1) Anything assembled at gunpoint tends not to be of high quality. No regrets and better than any $1500 alternatives at the time. 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. It failed, of all places, on the Bonneville salt flats area in Utah. Film Focus: Drowning Mona. He was absolutely correct. Rated PG-13 This is the same scenario as Chrysler- My parents always said that if you get a Dodge in town itll be a lemon, but in the country, itll be a good car because the smaller country dealer relies on repeat business and does a better PDI, ensuring bolts arent missing, and both sides identify the car correctly. Though set in Verplanck, "Drowning Mona" was shot entirely within an hour's commute of Los Angeles. That salty New England slush had its way with everything. I had two of them. But the acquisition by Fiat in 2010 renders all of that as ancient history. France, to use your example, had a protected market with tariffs on American cars (disguised as a horsepower tax). 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. Zastava Zastava made Yugos even after they stopped selling in America. 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! When they all disappeared, I surmised it was because he had been caught by the police for driving unregistered vehiclesmore likely they all just died from their terminal junkiness. Yes, even a Saturn will rust in Detroit, but in less harsh climes, Yugos tend to last well. 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. The battery required water to be poured into it. 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. Money was a problem; but not the root problem. What a story! Unscrew the shift knob. Yugoslavia, markets in new states opened for foreign cars and some of my friends bought American cars lured by size and luxury, but this love affairs usually ended quickly and costly. I attach a picture of a 1100,the previous model,(5 door too! (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. 2) My wife (an engineer like yourself) has been to Dubrovnik and says that the beaches are incredible. It was owned by a gentleman named Dave Benton who claimed to be the former engineering manager for Yugo North America. Drowning Mona | 2000 | PG-13 | - 5.5.5. 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. 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. He was a statistician in the War Department who became interested in using statistical controls to produce higher-quality manufactured goods. Thank you for the history, it complements the story of the car well. 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. I saw one not long ago on the streets in Eugene, but couldnt catch it. 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. Its unfortunate that the vast majority of Yugo owners didnt even get that. Those methods have contributed to rust resistance that we have come to expect from modern cars. GM had tried to buy Zastava in 2007, but the deal fell through. 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. In the moviedrowning MonaI remember there was among the many regular Yugos one that had four doors (a black one).Was it She picked them up for virtually nothing and was content with bare-bones transportation. When they came unglued from rot, there was no there there to support the structure. } In a totalitarian state, such as was Yugoslavia, there is no political embarrassment because criticism is a criminal offense. No parts fell off of it, the car generally was in good condition (other than some stains on the seats that I didnt care to speculate about). At inopportune times. The car was a modest success with just under 8000 sold in the first year, but when the 360 was pilloried by Consumer Reports as being unacceptable because of its numerous safety issues, the bottom dropped out of the venture and the last few cars sat on dealers lots for years before they were practically given away. after about 30 years of having the car rust off of the frame. I want to say she drove it, but I dont think she actually put many miles on it. Always. 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. I pampered and took extremely good care of it and maintained it very well, it just couldnt hold up to being pampered either. But there was one area that, frankly, I was impressed with, and that was the basic two-box design. There are many causes for poor management. There was a dealer in Denver Colorado, called Apple Motors, who used to sell warmed up Yugos. Im trying to remember, she actually, may have owned two of them. The gravity powered it! It was embarrassing, mother never drove it again. A Rolls-Royce Ghost, a Mercades S-class, and a Bently Mulsane. But recycled steel, for whatever reason, is overly prone to corrosion. I was only ten, but knew they were junk. Me and my friend Jerry (from Sam Bonds) drove a Yugo at a wrecker yard in Coburg some years back. Only other thing it needed to be roadworthy was front tires. Another example of the high cost of low priced objects. Just finished Drowning Mona and came here for background. The car itself staggered on until early 1992, with steadily declining sales and a dealer network that was slowly (and then quickly) going bankrupt. What kind of sicko lives there? It really has all of the benefits of an Italian car with none of the drawbacks. Blue in color. 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.
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