Let’s say you go for a vacation on an island in the Adriatic sea. What would you bring back home from there? A suntan? Some handicraft? Two of my friends went for something with a local flavour, and went halves on a 1977 Zastava 101. You could do worse. Beni, the guy who drove to my town a couple years ago with a blue Miata via Norway, is no stranger to wrenching on older, quirky cars, as he also owns an X1/9. This pretty much means he wasn’t afraid to set off to Germany, crossing the Alps, in the pea soup green 1100cc Fiat derivative. The thing even managed a comfortable cruise on the revered Autobahn. Joe Isuzu was nowhere in sight, though.
The first thing to go less than right was a flat tire, and the fuel filler neck rubber was found to be perished, after a persistent fuel smell invaded the cabin in Italy. But through the Alpine passes, driving up to 2500m in altitude, the Zastava conquered the mountains and made it to Southern Germany in one piece. A stop had to be made to inspect the aftermarket temp gauge, which acted up in rainy weather.
Now, let’s continue the initial hypothesis. Say you’ve arrived in Germany with your four-wheeled, four-speed (sometimes 3spd) souvenir. Where would you take it? How about the Nürburgring? [youtube width=”720″ height=”540″]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nx3XwYplfpI[/youtube]
The Zastava, loaded up with camaraderie and cameras, made a 15-minute lap around the Nordschleife. With a small ’70s car that’s spent most of its life on a little island off the Croatian coast, with the distinct uncertainness whether fourth gear feels like working again, that’s an actual accomplishment. [youtube width=”720″ height=”540″]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8cdaNi-5Uo[/youtube] And in this video, you can see the Zastava making its way up a mountain in an impenetrable fog at 2500 metres. All you can hear is the engine gasping for the last revolutions it can manage, and the belly laugh of a guy in a Suzuki Swift convertible. UPDATE: [youtube width=”720″ height=”540″]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LPN5BSQHlU[/youtube] In the Nürburgring video, you can see a 205 passing the Zastava right in the end. Here’s what it looked like from the Peugeot. Turn on captions for English subtitles. [Images: Hooniverse 2014/Antti Kautonen – Video: Finalgear TV]
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