This should be the day (based on my assumption that it was a tuesday... well, no way to check now) when dad bought the 2nd škodilak. The old one was just fine and dandy as far as engine and mechanics, but it started developing rust in the floor, specially door frames, so it was the regular five year cycle when you were supposed to change horses.
The old 105S was fine, as far as I was concerned, but the new 120S looked much better, design-wise, specially with the water cooler displaced into the front grille (the engine stayed in the rear like before). Just like any škodilak before it, it had lots of hiding spaces, a real smuggler's car, and it was soon put to work.
Dad, of course, didn't have the cash, and couldn't get a cash loan. Loans were means to help people buy appliances, furniture, building materials. You had to submit the invoice to the bank and they would pay it out of your loan, you wouldn't even see cash. That's how the system made sure you didn't waste the social aid you got, in shape of a loan, on booze, vacations or luxury items like cars.
So he arranged, through a friend somewhere in deep Serbia proper, to cash the loan. He got invoiced for some cement and beams, and got the cash. The guy would get reimbursed by the bank (and would probably keep some small change as a tip). This was accomplished on a trip some time in december. We went along, to keep him company, but I don't remember the exact date. Must have been a weekend, though. (... 25 words...)
I remember reading fresh Politika while we were waiting somewhere in the car dealership (probably some "Auto kuća" or whatever), and the fresh series of opinion pieces, sparkled by the "Muka s rečima" (trouble with words) by Mića Danojlić. The sentence I still remember: "Out of an empty head a full sentence can not come out". Finished the paperwork there after some time, and then drove to the storage area near the Pančevački bridge... don't even remember which side of it. Got the car there, it was still covered in preserving wax in places, had to wait for them to take it off, but at such low temperatures they did it quickly and not thoroughly. The wax never got completely removed; its smell stayed at least until summer.
Dad drove the new one until halfway, then we had coffee at Šerbulj's (which is actually a fisher's tavern, with fish čorba; the tavern kept the name until 2019, and I've been on Belgrade road a hundred times, yet this coffee was the ony time I sat there), and switched horses after that. The new škodilak slightly boiled at some point in the next few weeks, because the coolant it had was thin or just plain water, so one of the long pipes under the floor actually froze. The exhaust valve was, ahem, a screw in the middle of one of them, so I had to lie on the garage floor in mid winter. Froze my ass of while unscrewing it, and screwing it back was even worse.