Talk:Automotive industry in Serbia/Archive 1

Archive 1

The 4% issue

Hello User:Mr.choppers, first of all I want to thank you very much for the time and dedication you provided to expand and improve the article. This is really what our project here is all about, having dedicated editors who can access sources and add the content properly to corresponding articles. You expanded the article in very important issues and besides you helped regarding grammar and overall structure.

However, there is one claim that somehow seems like a mistake. It is the claim that in 1983 Yugoslavia imported only 4% of cars from western markets. That would somehow mean that basically out of 20 cars less then 1 would be imported from the west. That data doesn´t seem right at all. For instance, I grew-up in socialist Yugoslavia during 1980s and my father had an Audi 80, plus a VW Golf, his father (my grandpa) had a Mercedes 380 SEL (a car tht made sensation those years even in our travels trougought western Europe at time, even more with our communist red star included licence plates, and YU for Yugoslavia indication, in South Europe kids wolds come to see the interior troughout the window even ignoring us being inside, that was the fuzz around the car), my mother had a VW Beeatle she shared with her father. My cousin when graduated she got a new Zastava Yugo as gift. So that was the reality of some middle-high class of Belgrade during mid 1980s. When I exited my home, a tipical line-up of cars would be like: Zastava 101, Volvo, old Fiesta, Lada, Golf, Saab, Zastava 128, VW Polo, Opel Corsa, Wartburg, Lada Niva, Skoda, Peugeot 205, etc. As you can see I can guarantee you the ammount of western and eastern built cars was 50-50%. Saying 4% is totally insane. FkpCascais (talk) 06:26, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

@FkpCascais: - hi, thanks. I am sure you are aware of WP:TRUTH and WP:OR. In the article cited, it says that 2870 western cars were imported in the first ten months of 1984. But this doesn't include Renaults, Citroëns, Opels, nor Volkswagens, since they were "built" in Yugoslavia. Ladas, Skodas, Polski-Fiats etc are also not included in this number. Zastava sold 20,000 CKD/imports in 1983, IMV assembled 36,500 Renaults, and TAS assembled ~25,000 Volkswagens. Perhaps I should make this clearer.  Mr.choppers | ✎  06:34, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

Yes, of course, I absolutelly acknolledge that sources are what really matters, but somehow 4% seems so shockingly low that I couldn´t resist not commenting. I really wonder if it might not be a mistake. Nowadays we have available videos at youtube from Yugoslavia, Belgrade, or Zagreb, from 1960s, 1970s or 1980s, and one can see the cars. No doubts about half are domestic Zastava´s and eastern European brands mostly Skoda´s and Lada´s, but about the other half would be usual popular European brands. I understand the suggestion that those were mostly the ones assembled in Yugoslavia, but even so, 4% seems so little, it´s less then one car in 20. Mercedes seemed to have been more frequent just by themselves and they had no cars assembled in Yugoslavia, only trucks at FAP. Since I was a car brands enthusiast when child, and happends to have grew up preciselly during 1980s in Yugoslavia, this is a matter I did paid attention. Besides the domestic and eastern-European car brands, it was fairly common to see Peugeot, Citroën, Renault, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Opel, Audi, VW, Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Lancia, Volvo, Saab, Mini Morris, Talbot, NSU or European Ford models. Rovers were rare, someone could eventually have old Land Rover, Vauxhals rare as well just as most UK brands in general. USA brands could occassionally be seen but they would be the result of some private owner importing the car. Italian expensive sportscars only became existent by end of the decade and were a clear sign of something being wrong in the alleged socialist paradise. On the other hand, there was allways a small group of real auto enthusiasts who would proudly take care of their old Audi Quattro or Lancia Delta´s. Japanese cars were rare and would usually belong to last mentioned car enthusiasts.

The more we approached the end of the decade, there was more notorious an invasion of cheap eastern-block-built new models. Skoda Fabia was sort of best one, then there was a number of Soviet cars which had this confusing thing of having one same car model named differently, sort of Lada Samara but also Moskvich, or VAZ, or 20 other names while not knowing the diference cause looked same. Then the Eastern German Wartburgs which were sort of revolutionizing for running on gas, but on the other side made everyone freak out thinking if they could explode if someoe hits you. So, while this trend may seem to confirm your book claim of only 4% western cars, it doesn´t, because, while this was truth in most rural and suburban areas where people just wanted a cheap 4 wheels "thing/whatever" just to move around, at same time mid-1980s saw simultaneously a clear rise in number of car dealers, speacially from western European brands. My second knee unckle opened a Volvo dealership in Belgrade around early 1980s and dedicated his life to it ever since. The family station wagons were speacially popular, and with the excellent reptation the brand had, the great safety record, Swedish reliability plus, a psicological plus which was Sweden also being a neutral country just as Yugoslavia regarding Cold War, Volvo sales despite their relativelly high price regarding local living standard, were doing great. Despite having been a socialist country, Yugoslavia enjoyed the privilege of having said "No" to Stalin in 1948 and stayed out of Warsaw Pact and COMECON which were the organisms trough which Moscow exercized direct influence over the rest of European socialist countries. Yugoslavia stayed socialist, but neutral, and opted to follow its own path independent from Moscow. It ended being a much more liberal socialism, open to west, where there was some crimes commited and forced nationalisations, but a sistem of self-menagment of companies was created, in which companies would create direction boards formed by representatives of all categories of employees and they would run the company. It was the core of the idea of workers power by letting them feel they play a role in the company. They choose their representatives and the sistem was rotative, so anyone dedicated and with will and ideas could come up. All he needed is to be member of the Communist Party and loyal to its ideals (it was a communist dictatorship after all). Another interesting aspect was the encouragment of collaboration between different factories from different republics. For instance, Zastava could build cars in Serbia by importing seats and textile materials from a client factory in Croatia, metal parts from Macedonia, plastics from Kosovo, etc. Furthermore, not being member of any of the sides in Cold War, Yugoslav companies worked both ways, plus, the initiative of Non-Alligned Movement gave many Yugoslav companies advantage to make lucrative contracts around the world. Unfortunatelly, with the end of Cold War, Non-Alligned nations lost their importance and most suffered major transformations affecting Yugoslav position on those markets, and right next, Yugoslavia breaks-up, breaking with it also the production chain most major producers were dependent upon. Yugo became a widelly known case, when in early 1990s an already weak-quality product which relied exclusivelly on its available price and a plan of progressivelly improving the product and further develop and diversify it, sees an opposite reality, when suppliers located now in newly independent countries end collaboration and Zastava founds itself in an ungratefull situation of having to replace them by local companies in record time while clearly impossible to teach-them-how and make them provide sufficient ammount with required quality in predicted time. To put the nail on the coffin, UN imposed economic sanctions which included Serbian companies an embargo on imports and exports which lasted almost the entire 1990s decade. Zastava became a meme known just by the Yugo which was a concept that was out of its time and space which intention was to provide the world with a car an entire segment of people otherwise couldn´t afford one. Easy to mantain, to drive and to park, it was meant to solve traffic problems in tight urban environments. However, Zastava expected the small Yugo to be just the introduction of the brand on world markets. The image of modesty and solution for lower-classes people fit perfectly with the socialist Non-Alligned ideology and the expectation was to take the advantage once entered and distinguished itself in the markets, to introduce other models hoping that way they could stand a chance along the tough competition. With Yugo´s still shinning new to be sold, Zastava was already working on the Florida which was supposed to compete with Fiat Tipo and Skoda Fabia. Florida was expected to include a berlina model by mid-1990s, but by then it was already clear Yugoslav car adventure was abruptly over. It is hard to say how it could have gone if circunstances had been normal. Zastava is an industrial complex that originated in mid-19 century and has had its main focus from start to now on military industry. It definitelly established itself and won recognition as a quality producer in that field. The cars manufacturing adventure happened in a sector within the complex which initially dedicated to car repairs and then right before WWII made an assembling line of American Jeeps. After communists took power, they nationalised the entire complex, and, when it became clear by 1950s that Yugoslavia was about time to start producing cars, Zastava facilities became the obvious choice. Fiat put it all running and soon Zastava was placing Fiats in most eastern-block markets. Despite introducing models and inovations much later then models made in Italy, Yugoslav Fiat´s were still quite appreciated in eastern markets. However, for some reason, the ideology of Yugoslav Communist Party CPY never allowed Zastava to perform any extravagances and for 3 decades it will continuously produce only humble models. It was only with dictator Tito death in 1980 that Zastava gets its chance to open wings and try something darring. A brand Yugo was introduced with clear indication that it wanted to move in a direction to become more appealing to western markets and top Italian designer Giurgiaro was hired to design the new models. Even so, CPY was still rulling, so to balance things up, lets ask Giurgiaro to start humble with small models. Funny, Yugoslavs were after Dutch ammong the tallest nations in the world, but due to this communist policy of pretending extreme humblness, Yugoslavs had to find ways for decades to fit in their Fiat 600 and later Yugo´s...

Anyway, I really don´t expect you at all to read all this. I felt inspired and it is related to the article, so I guess it want hurt my text staying here. I was a major car enthusiast so I made here many observations I find important but I haven´t searched for sources so I could add them properly in the text. On contrary, you did, and the entire reason of my thread was to thank you for the fine work you did. I still somehow wander about the only 4% of western car imports in 1983, it just seems so extremelly low. If you picked 20 random cars parked in a street in 1983 back in Yugoslavia, you could have roughly over 10 made by a combination of Zastava´s and eastern bloc ones, but the number of western ones would never be just one. Even including the domestically assembled like TAS Golfs, IDA Cadets and Corsa´s, Slovenian Renaults, my impression is that 4% would be just old Mercedes. Then taxis... Something doesn´t seem right there, either was state manipulating data, or something else.

I fully know none of what I said counts, neither my sugestion of seing a youtube video from Yugoslav streets from 1980s. I will try to see if I can find any sources dealing with this issue and bring them here to you if I find them. FkpCascais (talk) 03:11, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

More sources are always nice. Again, I don't see most of this contradicting the numbers - The locally manufactured cars continue to represent a large portion. The article also mentions that Fords were quite uncommon in Yugoslavia, but that may have begun to change by the end of the decade. Also there must have been significant second-hand imports, returning guest workers and the like. In 1980s Croatia, for instance, every tenth child had parents who worked abroad. I imagine lots of gently used W123s made their way to Yugoslavia that way. As a side note, I went to Yugoslavia a few times in the early 1980s, but I only looked at the Zastavas and other East Bloc cars since I could see Western cars all the time. Here's a photo, my dad's Ascona between a Wartburg and a 750.  Mr.choppers | ✎  16:21, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

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