“I just never liked dealing with the dealers. I don’t want to give a guy 25-grand in an envelope [for the privilege of buying one].” He likens the Ferrari purchase experience to “rich guys who go to a dominatrix” to get the crap kicked out of them.
Here’s the YT video of that if not on Jalopnik. Worth a watch: Leno compares Ferrari dealers to McClaren dealers.
I assume the Moskvitch was never available in the UK, so it wasn’t included.
I have ridden in a yugo. Once. Once was more than enough.
An 80s acquaintance was yugoslavian, and her father insisted on buying yugos. It was awful. Small as I am, I felt gargantuan in the hard and minuscule back seat. The endless loud rattles rattled me. She had a hard time shifting - dunno how much of that was proportionally down to the car’s feebleness and her possible lack of skill. 
The suspension was stiff AF. Everything in the interior was so poorly made and fitted, I was afraid I’d break something. I avoided touching things.
Russia apparently decided to dubiously reward Jamaica’s communist government by making the Lada available there. When we were frequently visiting The Island during the 90s, we often saw Ladas of many colors - multiple panels had obvs been cannabalized from several others. These naturally included many who were black/gold/green and red/gold/black/green, which I must assume was deliberate.
A friend of ours owned one, and we had the pleasure of taking a ride in it. It was actually much better than the yugo, and when I told him so, he laughed and laughed. Mom was horrified that I’d ridden in a yugo, so I had to tell that sorry tale, which much amused them.
The back seat was stiff and uncomfortable, as was the ride, but both were still better than the yugo. Despite being decades older than the yugo, there were also far fewer rattles. Dave had no problem shifting, and once again I don’t know how much of that was due to the car and how much of it was Dave’s skill.
Good man. 
Uh! clears throat Point of order… a Yugo was NOT a “soviet” car… And Yugoslavia was not “behind the iron curtain”… 
okay… back to your regularly scheduled cars under socialism analysis!
We had one for a while. I remember it being a not high quality, but solid enough car for what we paid for it. Not great, but not entirely awful either… though I don’t think we had it very long… I will also say that they seem to be talking about the Yugo in Yugoslavian markets, not the American version, which were of different quality… If people haven’t read it, I’d recommend this book on the topic, since he does a great job of figuring out how bad the American yugo was, and if it was really as bad as we all remember…
[ETA] Correction - he makes the point that the Yugo was worse in Yugoslavia than in the US, in part due to specific standards it had to meet to get into the US market in the first place…
It’s a fun book, and he starts each chapter with a funny yugo joke!
Yeah, well, Youguslavia was always sorta perceived as “Soviet Bloc Light” in my neck of the woods. The bit of the iron curtain you could crawl under, there and back, for cheap holidays.
Oh sure… but I think it’s important to point out that they were not in the soviet bloc, primarily because Stalin kicked them out because Tito would not bend the knee to him. they were the only socialist country to get Marshal plan funding, and Tito was instrumental in forming the non-aligned movement.
With regards to vacationing in yugoslavia… when my parents lived in West Germany, at one point my mom had wanted to go to Yugoslavia with a friend, and apparently my dad said no…
Tito could have taught a masterclass in working both sides of the the road.
And if your dad was stationed in West Germany and/or held any level of security clearance he probably had the right idea.
Indeed, but the third world countries weren’t wrong about where the threat to the world rested during that time…
I don’t think he held a very high level security clearance, as he would have been a private at the time… I suspect it was more about a young husband being overly cautious of his young wife and daughter… They would both have been 20 or 21 at the time.
If Germans were going on the regular for trips, I don’t know how dangerous it could have been, though. The 70s were a relatively stable period there, from what I recall from my readings of that period (mostly stuff by Sabrina Ramet).
Ideal candidate to try to hook and reel in with just the right mix of coercion and reward, and then cultivate over time. Détente or no détente, everyone one was still playing their usual intelligence games and Yugoslavia was a very suitable playground.
When I was a kid, the general look of cars such as these completely turned me off. Back then, as opposed to now, I didn’t bother to consider and appreciate the artistry and aim of the designers. Another Leno find and restoration, his story on this one (perfect body color for the coachwork, btw), involves a couple of Boston cops.
I’m reminded of this magazine cover that’s been permanently etched into my brain after seeing it as a kid:
For what it’s worth, $3990 in February 1986 would be worth $11,675 today. (According to the CPI calculator. Which is astonishingly still working.)
The cheapest new car today is apparently the Nissan Versa, which starts at $18,330. (Or $6264 in 1986 dollars.)
It’s crazy how few cheap cars are available in America right now, and I certainly hope that changes soon. The Ford Maverick had the right idea when it first came out but it didn’t take long for them to hike up the price and stop including the hybrid drivetrain as the cheapest, standard option.
That said, at least the cheapest new cars today are generally safer and more reliable than the cheapest new cars from 40 years ago. I bought a base model Honda Fit and got 330,000 miles out of it before it died. Most cars from the 1980s didn’t make it anywhere near that long.
I think I have seen 1, 2 (1&2 gen), 3 & 4. I think there is like one 1 in Finland because the one I saw had the same licence plate that all pictures I have seen of Polestar 1 in Finland.
I’m glad they didn’t set off the fireworks too soon.
So is that just one step below their planned “Axiom Class” ships? Looks like we’re getting pretty close!
This may or may not qualify for this thread since it doesn’t actually have any motors installed yet, but the new Bezos car company has an unorthodox marketing strategy:
(Crawling underneath the vehicle revealed that it’s just an empty shell with no drivetrain or even a suspension.)
