"Berang" (berang)
11/24/2018 at 00:10 • Filed to: None
1
15|
"Berang" (berang)
11/24/2018 at 00:10 • Filed to: None | 1
| 15 |
Dacia invited Malcom Bricklin and Tony Ciminera - the people responsible for bringing the Yugo to the U.S. - to tour their factory, hopeful they would want to sell the car in the states. Before even finishing the tour both of them walked out of the factory in disgust.
It wasn’t just the sloppiness of the cons
truction that bothered them, Ciminera says the factory was so dirty, so disgusting, that it made him feel sick. The factory was so bad he didn’t feel the cars were fixable or the workforce capable of making a car (as good as a Yugo... which is saying something).
interstate366, now In The Industry
> Berang
11/24/2018 at 00:21 |
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It’s great news that they weren’t sold here then.
The Crazy Kanuck; RIP Oppositelock
> Berang
11/24/2018 at 00:23 |
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Sounds perfectly terrible , I’ll take 3.
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Berang
> interstate366, now In The Industry
11/24/2018 at 00:23 |
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They sold some in Canada in the 80s. Supposedly the car in the photo is the last remaining Canadian
example in working order.
SmugAardvark
> Berang
11/24/2018 at 00:33 |
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I love how the pictured Dacia looks like it c ould be a Grand Theft Auto version/homage of a Saab 900.
My hovercraft is full of eels
> Berang
11/24/2018 at 00:39 |
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I Hungary, the country’s first Renault-dealer started his career (and earned the money for the business) in the 1980s by improving Dacias.
People bougth the brand new cars to his workshop, and he would dismantle them to be re-assembled the right way, replacing some of the more problematic parts in the process.
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My hovercraft is full of eels
> Berang
11/24/2018 at 00:41 |
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Berang
> My hovercraft is full of eels
11/24/2018 at 00:54 |
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As I understand it, this is how the U.K. importer of Skoda operated in the 1970s.
fintail
> My hovercraft is full of eels
11/24/2018 at 01:21 |
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I like the choppy directly translated ad copy, and the blackout trim on the cars, to bring a 1969 design into the 80s.
That Bastard Kurtis - An Attempt to Standardize My Username Across Platforms
> My hovercraft is full of eels
11/24/2018 at 06:41 |
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Fun fact: in the 1980s, a Ford dealership I worked at (which was a Lincoln-Mercury dealership at the time) offered ‘blueprinting’ of a customer’s new car at an added cost. They would go through common areas of fault with the brand god damn new cars and fix things that had no earthly right being broken on a brand new Lincoln.
RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars
> Berang
11/24/2018 at 06:51 |
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Damn! I had no idea Dacias were ever sold here in Canada at all!
As for build quality, Hubnut on Youtube has a Dacia wagon and theirs doesn’t seem to have given them THAT many problems...?
!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!
He and a friend
road tripped it all the way back from the Balkans (I forget which country they bought it in) to the UK and it made it!
KnowsAboutCars
> My hovercraft is full of eels
11/24/2018 at 07:51 |
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“Fine European Craftsmanship”
I had’t lol’d at a brochure in a while.
Otto-the-Croatian-'Whoops my Volvo is a sedan'
> fintail
11/24/2018 at 08:09 |
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That’s a great observation. Most eastern-european carmakers did this. All the chrome strips and trim were replaced by rubber and plastic, supposedly to cut costs, while giving off the appearance of a contemporary design for the time.
Nice, I’ll remember that.
LongbowMkII
> Berang
11/24/2018 at 09:32 |
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Obviously they never played PUBG
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fintail
> Otto-the-Croatian-'Whoops my Volvo is a sedan'
11/24/2018 at 12:14 |
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Yep, it was a trend of the time, and not just in the eastern bloc. Others come to mind, like Omnirizons (coupes especially, IIRC) and the Morris Ital. Easy way to move a car into the 80s.
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Berang
> RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars
11/24/2018 at 12:59 |
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I think most of the quality issues wouldn’t be apparent after 30 years. They were seeing things like new pressings just tossed into tubs, and unprepared/dented metal being painted in filthy conditions. It was, to paraphrase, the lack of knowing, and apparent lack of wanting to know how to build cars that turned them away (that and the factory being horrendously dirty).
They had already worked on the Yugo, and Tony felt the same way when they visited the Zastava factory, but Malcolm convinced him that if they made some changes in production they could have a car that’d be decent enough for the U.S. market. When they visited the Dacia plant, not even Malcolm imagined it would be possible to get the cars up to the standard they worked for with the Yugo.