My fellow LaLD brothers and sisters,
as some of you remember from my intro post, my ‘collection’ consists out of the weirdest little things you can imagine. From an xj220 to an AMC Gremlin, I’m sure I have some more stashed somewhere.
This weekend was a good weekend. I had visited an event (more on that in a later post) and had the chance to make some additions to the already weird, but small collection I have.
Behold, my 4 new minions:
Yes, its a Fiat/Zastava 101.
Could this very well be the last rustfree Zastava 101 in existence you ask? It could very well be, my friend.
Next one is a car the US guys on this website might actually have seen driving around. A Yugo 45A, basking in all its Eastern Euro beauty...
Just look at it.....you cant but love it. Even in Die-Cast form, it looks weird and slow and about to crap on you on the side of a Slovenian back road, but you know you love it.
It’s the kind of relationship where you ask yourself ‘What the hell am I gonna do with you?’, like Adam Sandler asked himself when he adopted that brat of a kid in, you guessed it, Big Daddy. Only here, you’re not really asking that question because you have no clue what to do, like Adam Sandler. No, you’re asking yourself that question because a half an hour earlier you got sent away from Boris’ junkyard trying to sell off whats left of your Yugo and even Boris made a ‘yuk, that smells’ notion about your car and told to you ‘get that heap off my property’.
Next up is the Zastava 1100. I’m pretty sure it’s the same car as the 101, but my ‘Weird Die-Cast models’ OCD in combination with my Croatian background acted up and I had to have all of the former Yugoslavian benchmark cars. This is basically the same as the Yugo 45, except, it’s designed to transport your beloved mother-in-law, your sister-in-law, that drunk uncle that never brings you anything but that bottle of Vodka thats either empty or that he’ll steal back from you while you’re being held hostage by your grandma whose feeding you hard candy and pinching your cheeks....Aaah, the good times in the Zastava....
The last, but most certainly not least, in the quartet of ‘Yugoslavian Memories of Yesteryear’ is the Zastava 1400 BJ. I can’t tell you much about the car, as it’s from an age before I was born, however, it’s also a Fiat, so that should say something and it does have BJ in its name, so that’s funny. Except it’s not, because nobody back then knew what ‘BJ’ meant in Yugoslavia, so you always felt a fool buying a Zastava 1400 BJ because of the name (because why else?) and making that joke in front of your ladyfriend.
I’m just glad I could pick up these cars in Die-Cast form. Most of them have served a great contribution to my memories of Croatia. Mostly memories of my uncle (not the drunk one) wrenching on a Yugo 45 and cursing at it, which inevatibly evokes memories of my mother wondering how I learned all those curse words after spending a weekend at my uncle and aunt’s place.
Hope you enjoyed the post as much as I enjoyed finding these. I don’t know whether it was my background kicking in (I’m Croatian) or the love for Die-Cast models or just my car-enthousiasm, but I couldn’t be more happier finding these things. Love them!
Friendly greetings,
Niko.