They Love Their Little Orphan Cars

[Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>]

The New York Times
October 11, 2000, Wednesday, Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section H; Page 17; Column 1; Cars
HEADLINE: COLLECTING;
They Love Their Little Orphan Cars. Someone Has To.

BYLINE:  By MARSHALL SCHUON

HERE she comes, early in the morning: Jessie Adair tending to her passions.

There is the dog, of course, and he needs his constitutional. His
name is Beamer, and she loves him dearly. But her other passions --
and her main problem just now -- are the two Yugos parked at the curb
here in the Riverdale section of the Bronx.

"We have alternate-side-of-the-street parking, which means I have to
move the cars for the street cleaners most mornings," she said. "If I
oversleep, I get tickets. It's good my other Yugo is out on Long
Island."

That's right: Yugos. Those are the little Yugoslavian Fiats that were
imported into the United States in the late 1980's, and they are the
epitome of "orphan cars," automobiles no longer made or supported by
their makers. Orphans are usually inexpensive, and some may even
appreciate in value. Frequently, they are attention getters, and they
often invoke happy nostalgia.

The list of orphan automobiles is long, ranging from Alfa Romeos to,
well, to Yugos. But while the cars have lost their parents, they have
a growing contingent of rabid guardians like Jessie Adair. She is 52,
a onetime Broadway understudy who now works as a word processor for a
Times Square law firm, and her Yugos are part of a collecting fever
that includes American quilts and Betty Boop cartoon memorabilia.

"I got my very first Yugo about 1986, right after they hit this
country," she said. "I drove that one into the ground, and then I
bought another almost-new one up in Yonkers. That was the car that
some drunks picked up and flipped on its roof just for a prank. My
poor little car was destroyed."

Eventually, she bought another Yugo from a man on Long Island who had
acquired nine of them when Yugo went bankrupt in 1991. That is one of
the cars parked here at the curb this morning, a plebeian red sedan.
But its companion is more special, a rose-colored Yugo convertible
that she found in North Carolina.

"I drove it home topless," she said, "which is to say it has no roof.
But then it started to storm. Thunder and lightning and no top -- but
at 70 miles an hour, the rain just sheared off the windshield. I
stayed dry until I got to the first tollbooth. Then I turned into a
kiddie wading pool."

The car still has no roof, and a new one will have to wait until
hinges can be found. Her third Yugo, the one parked at a friend's
place on Long Island, also needs work, but she figures there's no
rush.

In April 1999, NATO bombs destroyed the plant that had continued to
hammer out Yugos for Europe, and parts are scarce. But the
convertibles have always been rare, with fewer than 100 ever coming
to the United States.

As for routine service and repairs, she said she has found "this
incredible mechanic who was born with a silver wrench in his mouth."
And like a surprisingly large number of other Americans who drive
orphan cars, she has discovered camaraderie and a network of support
on the Internet. "I am the YuGodess of the Yugo group," she said,
laughing.

If she is the goddess, then Larry Claypool is the patron saint. He
too uses the Internet, and he too has a Yugo convertible -- one that
he bought after pursuing and beseeching its owner for almost three
years. But Mr. Claypool, a 46-year-old repair shop owner in
Frankfort, Ill., owns two dozen other orphans, ranging from a '51
Studebaker to a 15-year-old A.M.C. Eagle.

THE vehicles are mostly registered and mostly on the road, he said,
and he takes a different one to each of the annual picnics that have
made him, in the minds of many Midwesterners, Mr. Orphan Car.

"I'm kind of in the orphan business, because I fix Corvairs," he
said. "So I'm involved with a lot of car clubs, and our local chapter
of the Corvair club always had a picnic. Naturally, the same people
would show up with the same cars every year. So back in 1990, I
suggested that we invite all the other orphan car clubs in the area.
This year was the 10th anniversary, and we had 140 cars show up. We
don't judge the cars or have trophies, none of that. It's just a fun
day, and it's really growing."

Most of Mr. Claypool's cars are from the 1960's, things like a
Pontiac Tempest, a Nash Metropolitan, a Renault Dauphine and a
Sunbeam Imp. There is a '57 Willys, an early Subaru and a 1966
Oldsmobile, the first of the front-wheel-drive Toronados. And, of
course, there is the Yugo ragtop.

"I paid $1,100 for the convertible," he said, "but I bought it when
prices were at their bottom. I don't think you could buy a decent one
today for less than $4,000."

His everyday driver, though, is the A.M.C. Eagle. "It's an '85, and
American Motors stopped making them in 1987," he said. "They have
four-wheel drive and good ground clearance. That's one of the reasons
I like them. Here in the Chicago area, we have to concern ourselves
with poor weather, and they do their job really well in the snow and
ice."

It was reliability that led another orphan fan to a 1989 Peugeot
sedan in Columbus, Ohio. "It's been a remarkable car," said Michael
Zilliox, an accountant, "especially in what you get for what it
costs. My girlfriend, Mel Klever, also has an orphan -- a Sterling,
which was a short-lived clone of the Acura Legend. It was made in
England by Honda. And both of these cars, they really don't fail you."

Mr. Zilliox said he does most of the maintenance and repair work himself.

"The Peugeot manual I downloaded from a Russian site on the
Internet," he said. "Some guy over there was extolling the virtues of
the cars, and he put about half the chapters of the shop manual on
the Web. I printed it out and went to Kinko's and had it bound."

For Robert Bell, who drives a 1981 Fiat Spider, the Internet also is
indispensable. "You can sell parts, you can buy parts, and it's very
easy to get tips and advice," Mr. Bell said. "In the old days, you'd
feel alone in the wilderness."

He is a 40-year-old patent lawyer in Alexandria, Va., and he said the
little roadster brings him both admiring looks and a waft of
nostalgia. "My mother had a '67 Spider," he explained, "and my
brother and I used to ride in the back seat. I learned to drive in
it, so I have a lot of good memories from my teenage years."

WHEN he saw the Fiat for sale for $1,500, he snapped it up, even
though it had no brakes and needed transmission work. "That's another
thing," he said. "I love to tinker, and I've bought myself an attic
full of parts. I think you really get more in touch with a car when
you start taking it apart. This whole concept today of people leasing
cars and never really having an emotional commitment to their vehicle
-- I feel sad for them."

Which brings us back to Jessie Adair and her passions.

"When I think about having three cars -- three! -- I just want to say
'Eeeekk!' " she said. "But the Yugos are such fun. And one of them
actually belongs to Beamer anyway. He's a miniature greyhound, and
he's got that cinched-in little waist. He's gorgeous. The first time
I saw him riding in a convertible, he was standing up and his ears
were flying and he was smiling. I said, 'That's it -- I've got to get
him one.' And I did."


GRAPHIC: Photo: Jessie Adair with Beamer, her miniature greyhound,
and her three Yugos. She found the convertible in North Carolina,
without a top, and drove it home to the Bronx in a rainstorm. The car
still has no roof; parts are scarce. (George M. Gutierrez for The New
York Times)