>SNIP
>>anyone bying a car without paying months in advance and visiting the dealer (which was usually an outpost of the manufacturer, yes - the factory which made Yugos) a dozen times would be extremely suspect.
>
>Hopefully this is not still the practice for buying a car? Sheesh, Americans would go nuts - we are far too impatient for that. We expect to run out and buy a car TODAY and go home with it TODAY. Many are already buying cars on the internet (yikes).

Just like here, the automobile industry was a driving force to develop everything - this factory had cooperating manufacturers all over the country - and they were also a show-window for how good the system works. And, well, the country was doing too well at the time, and there were far more people who could afford to buy a car than these (and few others later) could produce. So there were waiting lists, and the import was limited for many reasons - the foreign trade balance, customs, and protection of domestic industry. The latter was the major reason, this factory could always claim it feeds 30000 families, so they had a lot of political clout.

The regular wait period was usually about six months - not 3-4 years as it was in the countries behind the iron curtain. And the quality of the cars was, well, not too bad if you were lucky.