A few days ago I found myself in a small town I rarely visited before. In Israel, these are the kind of places CCs are often found nowadays, on back streets where traffic is scarce and classic cars are less prone to be damaged or vandalized. And this town did not disappoint either, rewarding with my childhood’s very familiar shape of a Fiat 128.
But once I saw the license plate, which placed this car as a 1982 vintage, I was reminded of the small controversy it caused back in the day which even led to an MOT regulation. Read on.
First, here’s what I saw while driving- a quite nicely preserved Fiat 128, sporting the mandatory Italian red paint and really, not bad at all for a 35-year old Fiat:
A bit dark, I know, but this was towards the end of daylight.
But hold on: the 128 was replaced by the Ritmo, or Strada (as called in the US), and that was in 1978, four years after the birth of the Fiat captured in my dash-cam.
This Strada ad is from 1979.
Of course, we know that assembly of the 128 continued in several places (Egypt, South America, etc.) under different names right up until 1985. But it was marketed in Israel as a true-blue Fiat, produced in Italy, no less.
The simple truth was that in 1981, the Israeli Fiat representatives started importing the “Zastava 128” from the Zastava factory in Yugoslavia. Later versions were called Skala, 101 and… Yugo. Yes, the 128 was a forerunner of the car we all know and love (its official name was Zastava Koral). Thing was, the importers dubbed the 128 as Fiat and denied any knowledge of its Yugoslavian origins from the customers, who were purchasing an appallingly produced car with horrible build quality and shoddy workmanship. At the time, one automotive reporter, Benny Barak, specifically asked the Fiat representatives whether the 128 was arriving to Israel from Yugoslavia. He was given an answer that it was arriving from Italy, where else?
But Mr. Barak decided to verify the matter further. In 1982, while visiting the Turin auto show, he approached Fiat after “noticing” there was no 128 on display. “I asked the Fiat representatives about this and was replayed that it is no longer in production, but it’s being assembled in Yugoslavia. I was curious because few weeks earlier a 128 owner called me and asked why on so many parts of his car a “made in Yugoslavia” is marked… I checked with the Israeli importer, which assured me that the 128 was Italian”. Barak ends his testimony somewhat comically, when he says: “At the Turin show, I asked one of Fiat’s people should a friend of mine buy one of these Yugoslavian 128s, to which he replied my friend would be best served elsewhere…”.
On April 4th 1982, Barak published his findings in an article and predictably caused quite a stir, especially after writing that “Fiat of Italy informed me of certain quality issues with the Yugoslavian assembled cars”. Not only 128 buyers were upset with the Israeli importers, but Fiat did not take kindly to one of their old, already replaced cars, being marketed as new and Italian made. The importers claimed they only meant the cars were leaving to Israel from the Trieste port and not that they were produced there… Yes, really. Eventually the Israeli MOT stepped in and decreed that the country of production must appear on the car’s license, and this has been so ever since.
So, what we have here is really a Zastava 128 and not a Fiat, but since it was marketed in Israel as such I’ll leave it at that. But let’s end on an Italian note. Here are two examples of older, bona-fide Fiat 128s:
I really love these and other interesting cars from that era. Post war to early 80’s. Cars really had personalities and all were didtict. Badge swapping began in the early 70:s but it wasn’t rampant and was more of an american thing. By the 80’s one car could have 3 badges on it. Marketers and bean counters. Of course I get it… Costs mean float or sink, but maybe fewer badges were needed. The Europeans resisted this for a while but are now leaders in it. VW being the worst in this. An R8 is s lambo for example. But even so they are doing a better job of giving each badge a distinct flavor. It will never be the same again and this is what makes that era for me a special one.
Curious story about the deception. Hard to believe it lasted that long. In today’s connected world, it would have been exposed instantly.
Sounds like the issue was that Israeli law at the time did not require the country of origin to be stated on the data plate. Fiat saw a loophole and zoomed (well, sputtered) right through it.
Not Fiat, but rather the Israeli importer. Fiat were not at all keen on the idea, as explained in the post.
But that’s how it is in a country where the local representative is king. I’ve outlined some of it here:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/cars-of-a-lifetime/coal-opel-astra-j-2012-on-the-way-up/
There’s still some hanky-panky going on out there. While at a new car show, I noticed that Minis built in Oxford England had VINs starting with “W” (Germany).
After some internet research I found this:
From Wikipedia:
The first character of the WMI is the region in which the manufacturer is located. In practice, each is assigned to a country of manufacture, although in Europe the country where the continental headquarters is located can assign the WMI to all vehicles produced in that region.
From a comment on OppositeLock:
Minis made after the BMW Group bought the rights are made in the UK, but the World Manufacturer Identifier is WMW (W in the first position meaning Germany). BMW never registered an SA to SM WMI for Minis being built in Oxford. Instead it is indicated by the plant code T (11th position) for Oxford, UK.
I don’t suppose a lot of people mind that their English built car has a VIN indicating German origins, but I find it a bit underhanded. It will be interesting to see if BMW can continue this practice once the Brexit separation is complete.
Probably will continue once Brexit is complete. Brexit won’t change who owns what, so HQ will still be on The Continent.
The Strada ad proclaims, “Trading in a car every few years is practically unheard of in Italy.” If theirs were anything like the ones that they sent us in the U.S. then I would say that that statement is very true. They didn’t last for more than a few years. Forty years later Fiat is still trying to distance themselves from that reputation. Once the town whore, always the town whore.
Funny that. My 2013 Fiat 500c Abarth has 20k on the clock, has been quite reliable, and, most importantly, still has a nice bank vault feeling to it. Which is quite a bit different from the 124’s and 128’s I drove back in the 70’s.
Definitely a matter of a bad reputation sticking to a car very unfairly and definitely wrongly. And continued by every Internet pundit that just HAS to bring up “Fix It Again Tony” every bloody chance they get.
It’d be nice if these guys would shut up about the past and let the current car succeed or fail on its own merits.
Definitely a matter of a bad reputation sticking to a car very unfairly and definitely wrongly. And continued by every Internet pundit that just HAS to bring up “Fix It Again Tony” every bloody chance they get.
Glad to hear your 500C is performing well. The 2012s seem to have their share of electrical gremlins. I was reading reviews last night on Edmunds and people’s experiences with the 500X and brother under the skin Jeep Renegade lean toward the frightening. Everything from engines randomly shutting down, to the notorious 9 speed transmission and a wide range of other electrical and mechanical ills, and the dealers come in for their portion of criticism for not fixing issues, denying the issues exist or taking forever to fix anything. I realize every car will have some number of unhappy owners, but the percentage on the 500X/Renegade is daunting.
All that being said…a dealer near me has a 17 500C Pop, black on black, that keeps catching my eye.
I’d always looked at Fiat’s with the “I wanna own one someday” (probably having something to do with being taught autocross on a 124 spyder by a lovely lady I was sleeping with at the time), but never really got motivated until I dropped by a buy here/pay here lot that my wife used to buy her cars from until we got her credit rating straightened out.
They had a bottom line, absolutely base (plastic wheel covers) blue 2012 Pop on the lot with 122,000 miles on it. Got the dealer to give me the keys and took it out for about half an hour, scaring the hell out of Maggie on the way I was running it on the back roads.
What really impressed me with the car was that it was TIGHT. No squeaks, no rattles, everything on it worked, the engine felt really good. And the car, from the interior condition, obviously had a previous owner who’s idea of “care” was to put gas in it.
I figured that if this car could perform that impressively after four years of 30k a year of I-don’t-give-a-damn ownership, there had to be something worthwhile about these cars. And if a bottom-of-the-barrel model could amuse me this much, I wonder what something higher up the food chain is capable of.
I found out. And I’m loving it.
By the way, after my sister and brother-in-law’s experience with a 2014 Jeep Cherokee (which I talked them into buying, their first American branded car in over twenty years), I will absolutely NOT consider any FCA product with that nine speed automatic. The car was a complete lemon, has already been traded in on a Kia Sorento, and is probably the last time they will ever look at an American nameplate.
Considering Beth was raised in that Chevy dealership as much as I was, that hurts.
So sad that such a fine car was allowed to be made so badly. My ’74 128 was the nicest car I’d ever owned up to that point, and long after I’d traded it in on an Alfa Berlina I tried very hard to find another 128. It was not without problems, some owing to less-than-perfect collision repair, some to chronic replays of clogging in the carburetor, but its comfortable cruising speed was close to its top speed on any half-decent road, and through the thick, damp snow and glare ice of a Tennessee winter it was all but unstoppable – well, it stopped when I wanted to, but never because it couldn’t cut through the snow or find traction up an icy hill.
Too bad they weren’t un-rustable.
Happy Motoring, Mark
As an owner of several 128-related, Zastava-built vehicles, I have to say it doesn’t really make a difference whether it was built in then-Yugoslavia or Italy – both executions are equally bad (or good, depending on point of view 🙂 ).
Mid-seventies Fiat bought the steel from ex-USSR, through rather complicated goods-exchange deal and it quickly gave Fiats, Alfas and Lancia a reputation for rusting at factory parkign lot 🙂
Yugoslav-built Zastava occassionaly used slightly better locally sourced steel sheet, although rust-proffing measures are rather bad. Cars exported to States had a lot better rust protestion, but nevertheless, all 128-based cars eventually rust in same places.
However, only real component where Italian-built cars got better deal was Argentinian-built 1.1l engine (1.3litre was actually better made in Yugoslavia,in special factory, with supposedly Mahle or Kolben-Schmit pistons, properly forged cams, although that really depends on which year they were built 🙂 )
Anyway, Egiptian-assembled Zastava 128 kits apparently did pretty well in warm, dry climate.
And as far as that engine is concerned, it really could deserve separate CC, as it was trully an international affair, starting it’s life as rejected Canadian project for snowmobile engine!:)
If you can ignore all the jokes, these make very good sports sedans. I live in Vienna and met a few people from Serbia who used to work on cars (I used to also) and am aware people use those as a basis for “Abarth” replica over there, like the below. Looks like fun car to me…
“Mid-seventies Fiat bought the steel from ex-USSR, through rather complicated goods-exchange deal and it quickly gave Fiats, Alfas and Lancia a reputation for rusting at factory parkign lot ”
But Alfa Romeo wouldn’t be part of Fiat until 1986…
At first, I was thinking the same thing 🙂
However, another source suggests that it was actual Italian government who made the deal and imported infamous steel sheets for the whole industry. So Alfa got the same steel as Fiat did, even not being part of the group.
It was indeed an Italian government deal with the Russians, and Alfa Romeo did get the same steel as Fiat and others.
Here is an article about the Lada, in TotalCar, which discusses the background of the ‘Russian Steel Deal’
http://totalcarmagazine.com/classicandbeloved/2014/04/29/fiat_124_vs_lada_shiguli_1200/
Summarized:
The Soviet government was on a mission at the end of the 60’s to find the base for an ideal people’s car…
They tested something like a dozen promising cars out of what Western Europe could offer but they all fell to pieces on Russia’s zillion potholes. The one that lasted the longest was the Fiat 124, so the Soviet government signed a deal with Fiat…
In the end the Italian government gave a huge loan to the Russians so that they could start the business….
As a part of the agreement the Russians supplied almost all the steel that Italian cars were built from in the 70’s and 80’s, and this steel was of neither high quality nor was it protected by any means while transported….
Lokki, that was one of the most interesting articles I’ve read in quite a while. This was something I’d never considered, but of course, living in the States, we didn’t see too many Ladas. And many of the 124s rusted away long ago, too…
So the Zastava-built cars DID have better corrosion resistance. This answers a question I asked in a response later. One should read the whole thread before asking questions.
And yes, I am a little confounded that people view the Yugoslav and Italian cars differently, when the Italian-built cars were bad enough to result in a precipitous decline in sales once the 128 came out and scared Americans away in droves. I’m not sure that the Yugo/Koral was much worse, it at all, than the 128 we got in the ’70s. The only thing which changed, I think, was that the Japanese cars–already reliable–got even better.
The US changed it’s VIN system, iirc in the early 80s, so it is now impossible to lie about the country of origin of a car because the first 2 digits of the VIN give it away.
Was Zastiva putting Fiat badges on their cars? Interestingly, cars built in the Zastiva plant are now wearing officially sanctioned Fiat badges as the 500L
Here in the US and Canada, we are used to getting obsolete, third world built VWs. Our current Mexican built Jetta is built on the platform that first saw the light of day as the Mk V Jetta, a decade ago. The Chattanooga built Passat is a generation behind the European market Passat.
Long after even we were getting German built Mk V Golfs, Canadians were being offered a spiffed up Brazilian built Mk IV Golf as the Golf City. One leaked across the border and landed in a used car lot near my home a couple years ago.
Just a small correction – name of the old manufacturer was Zastava, actually Crvena Zastava (“Red flag”).
Also, old factory was destroyed in 1999. slightly refurbished afterwards, but when Fiat bought it, the actually built a whole new factory close-by. That’s where they make 500L (unfortunately….)
…when Fiat bought it, the actually built a whole new factory close-by. That’s where they make 500L (unfortunately….)
It may only be the luck of the draw and the low number of 500Ls sold here, but the owner reviews are not quite as blistering for the 500L as they are for the Italian built Jeep Renegade. Of course, most Renegades seem to have the 2.4 with the notorious 9 speed trans, while most 500Ls, after the first year, have an Aisin auto trans.
That being said: when at the Detroit auto show, I handed the liner from the what not bin in the 500L’s dash to a girl working on the Fiat stand with the note that the Serbian glue appeared to have failed.
I didn’t feel like fighting the mob to get into a Renegade, so no observations on their build quality.
To be quite honest, I didn’t know they built 2.4 version in Serbia.
We do get 1.4l petrol, 1.3l diesel, an LPG version and rather interesting 0.9turbo petrol CNG. All manual, if I remember correctly.
Anyway, most of the components are not locally sourced (maybe for the best..:) ), but imported pre-assembled from Italy. Only components I am sure come from suppliers in Serbia are bumpers and several other bigger plastic components (I applied for the job at the factory, 4 years ago).
As for poor workmanship, it really became a problem in past few years, with occassional strikes, disruptions of production by missing components…
Also, car is few years old, does need some upgrades, more than just a facelift , to compete with numerous opposition.
To be quite honest, I didn’t know they built 2.4 version in Serbia.
I think all the US bound Serbian 500Ls have the turbocharged 1.4 with either a stick or, now, the Aisin automatic.
The Italian built 500X/Renegade base engine is the 1.4T with a stick, but most people here go with the 2.4/auto combination. As one regretful owner said of the 2.4/9 speed, “it looks good on paper”
For fun, I pulled up some window stickers on a dealer’s web site to see where the powertrain was made.
500L: 1.4T made in Italy, Manual trans: Italy. Automatic: Japan
500X: 1.4T and manual trans made in Italy. 2.4 and 9 speed made in US.
500, 500C, 500 Abarth: 1.4 and 1.4T made in US. Manual made in Italy. Automatic made in Japan.
Nowdays for example Fiat badges in general (as well as the Punto Mk2B lookalike Zastava-10 badges) were/are Made in Slovakia in an italian owned factory. These are than forwarded to Fiat plant in Italy and to Fiat plant of Serbia. Some time ago I have met few consignments as a forwarder… Fiat Ricambi doesn’t exist anymore. Mopar took its place over all over Europe.
Never owned one, but did get one as a rental car once. Stationed at the Presidio of San Francisco in 1990, my wife and I drove up to Lake Tahoe in her Fiat 124 Friday afternoon to get in a good day of skiing. A snowstorm Saturday night buried the Fiat in a place we found out wouldn’t get plowed until Monday or Tuesday. I had to report for duty Monday morning, so we had to leave Lake Tahoe on Sunday. After calling 3 different places, the Yugo was the only rental car I could find. Sunday afternoon was sunny, I80 was fresh plowed. A lot of people were as unprepared for the storm as we were. As soon as the chain controls over Donner Pass were lifted, all that traffic hit the road at the same time. Everyone was in a hurry as new snow was threatening. The poor Yugo was a hazard. It just couldn’t keep pace with traffic going uphill. I kept it to the floor on the downgrades to build speed for the upgrades. Eventually, a CHP pulled me over on one of the downgrades. After he ID’d me as an Army MP and verified the rental, he mentioned that he might be the 1st Valley Division CHP to tag a Yugo for speeding on I80. I ended up with a stern warning not to use the Yugo as an excuse to speed. I’ve always wondered if some other officer in his Division ever tagged another Yugo for speeding on the interstate. It certainly was possible – but only on the downgrades.
Cars of dubious origin are quite common here my sister bought a 3.2 V6 Holden Vectra an Australian car or so she thought, on the grille was the GMH corporate lion opening the bonnet revealed a plate marked Opel AG, on the other side of the radiator support panel was a plate saying built by Vauxhall motors Ellesmere, Normal enough for any Holden not wearing a Commodore badge.
By the late ’50s, Britain’s BMC had mastered the art of badge-engineering with their Austin Cambridge, Morris Oxford, Riley One-Point-Five, and Wolesley 1500 sharing the same unibody and drivetrains. You could make that five if you count India’s 1958 Hindustan Ambassador.
Then, in the early ’60s, Rootes-Group introduced the Hillman Super-Minx, and it’s clones – the Singer Vogue and Humber Scepter. The late ’60s next-generation Vogue and Scepter, were then joined by twin matching replacements for the Super-Minx – the Hillman Hunter and Sunbeam Arrow – plus the Iranian-built version called Peykan.
I think all the different badges sometimes confused the manufacturer. I knew a lady that had a ’67 Sunbeam Arrow, with a steering-wheel badge that said ‘Hunter’!
Happy Motoring, Mark
It’s so bizarre to me that Zastavas can have this atrocious reputation where Fiats themselves don’t. Everything I’ve read suggests that the 128 itself was a brilliantly conceived design which was total garbage where it came to reliability. And my first exposure to Fiat, which came in the form of a 131 in late ’80s Iran, also suggested that most people thought they were disposable, unreliable cars.
On the other hand, in ex-Yu itself, they are reasonably well-regarded and many are still on the road, despite the propensity to rust. Are the Zastava-made cars made of better metal?
Finally, were Fiats regarded as especially reliable in 1980s Israel? The country’s historical love of Subaru and American(especially GM) cars suggests to me to Israelis have a higher standard for what makes a reliable car versus people in Southern Europe or the rest of the Middle East.
Perry: they were thought of as acceptable for the price, and all jokes aside, the drivetrain used to hold reasonably well on things like the 130, 131, Uno and Punto. But they were swept aside once the main Japanese manufacturers arrived and then the Koreans.
Great article, great commentary. Cheers
In the mid ’70’s the cooperation between the Fiat and the Zastava Companies had been so tight that the Italian 128s exported to the US had built in DMB engines of Yugoslavia made under licence. http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2010/11/the-crusher-hungers-for-italian-food/ .
DMB was an engine manufacturing plant who had supplied engines to the Zastava car factory. As well as to Fiat plant in Turin Italy. 🙂
DMB was supplier of Fiat up to early 2000s – that factory is, as far as I know, last producer of Fiat’s type 100 series engine, years after Yugo 45 production stopped (Jugo 45, Yugo 45, Yugo Koral 45, Yugo Tempo 1,0, Zastava Tempo 1,0, Zastava Koral 1,0, and variations: L, AX, EX, Junior…).
Fiat 128 was produced in Yugoslavia in 1980-1985 period, even for Italian market, alongside to Zastava 128 (1980-2003) and Nasr 128 (for Egypt, mainly CKDs).