fića
(Machine, Yugoslavia)
It was a car. Based on FIAT 600, with a souped up 750 ccm engine. It carried four people, provided they weren't too fat. The working man's car. I learned to drive on one, and would sometimes get a chance to drive one - never owned one, though. Sat in many of them while hitchhiking. Dad owned one, 1967-71, and it went as far as Warsaw and Black sea, plus the numerous smuggling trips to Romania.
Production ceased around 1981.
The main line in instruction manual (unofficial) was „step on it, you can't overdo it“.
Dad had one, 1967-1971, drove it all the way to Warszawa and Black sea. Smuggled a hill of stuff. His was the older model, with hinges on the doors in the back, and handles in the front, opposite from the standard. If the lock gives at any decent speed, the air drags the door out and slams it over the rear window. Don't know if that ever happened. The standard and common logic dictate that the hinges be in front. And they did put them so, a few years later.
I'm adding this picture here just to show how Crvena Zastava never managed to make their own presses, so they used italian, unchanged. Look at the license plates. They don't fit, there's no room there, it's about 2-3 cm tucked behind the fender. That's because the italian plates were different - the front one was much smaller, at least by half, and there was a space where it fit exactly. In the rear, there was also a difference, their rear plate was to hold two rows of text, so it was also narrower than ours by about a third, and twice as tall. The rear plate light was designed to shine on that and it never gave enough light to read our plates.
What Zastava did change was the headlights, a bit bigger now than on the model of the sixties, and the plastic ornament on the front, which was now smaller and simpler. It was still too big for the front plate to be wholly visible.
Mentions: march 1961., march 1967., 15-VI-1967., august 1967., Vacation, caravan way, 28-VIII-1967., april 1968., 19-V-1968., 02-VI-1968., 04-VII-1968., 14-VII-1968., 15-VII-1968., 08-II-1969., 16-IV-1969., 11-V-1969., 18-V-1969., july 1969., august 1969., 05-VI-1970., 01-XII-1970., until 17th, 01-VII-1971., 21-VII-1971., and the rest of those days., august 1971., 01-VIII-1971., 17-VIII-1971., 02-XI-1971., 19-VIII-1973., 13-I-1974., Korni grupa only tonight, july 1974., august 1974., Vacation enforcement, 23-V-1975., 22-VII-1976., 26-VIII-1976., february 1977., 23-VIII-1977., 31-XII-1977., 21-V-1982., 20-I-1989., Interest, as per bank, 06-VI-1994., 29-XII-1995., december 1996., 01-VIII-2005., 27-XII-2010., 05-VII-2014., 17-I-2017., 13-VIII-2018., Man, the van, 26-V-2021., 07-VI-2021., 14-IV-2024., in serbian