SARAJEVO— There is a distinct air of Peckham nowadays in Bosnia’s funding, Sarajevo, as the famous yellow three-wheeled van from the BBC’s long-running comedy “Just Fools and Steeds” travels the city roads.
The little Reliant Regal was the hallmark of the celebrities of the collection– the tempting Trotter bros from Peckham, a working-class area in London. In Bosnia, a reproduction comes from the Fatic bros, neighborhood business owners that love the program.
The Fatics are suppliers in home devices, running an effective business with loads of staff members and a substantial store on the borders of Sarajevo. Constructing business, nevertheless, has actually appeared like the ups and downs of the Peckham market investors Del Young boy and Rodney Trotter, they state.
” We are most definitely the neighborhood variation of the collection,” Tarik Fatic, the more youthful of the bros, informed The Associated Press. “We were constantly handling something, we would certainly acquire whatever we can and after that offer it.”
The significantly prominent BBC comedy, which started in 1981, complies with the lives of the Trotter bros and their far-from-straightforward course from cloths to treasures. Throughout 7 collection and numerous Xmas specials, the Trotters attempted numerous get-rich-quick systems, getting low-grade or often black-market items and offering them at the marketplace.
Many in Bosnia and in the bigger Balkans conveniently understand the Trotters’ unlimited wheeling and dealing. In the area that experienced a collection of battles in the 1990s, where the economic climate was ruined and continues to be deeply corrupt, the Trotter means of survival are easy fact.
Much like the Trotter bros, “we constantly attempted to make earnings and despite the amount of times we fell short, we simply carried on,” Tarik Fatic claimed.
Likewise from a working-class household, and maturing in a nation that was ruined in the bloody 1992-95 ethnic dispute, the bros attempted selling food, fowl and garments prior to choosing home devices. They know there are no assurances their existing success will certainly last.
” The marketplace (in Bosnia) is still messy and unsteady,” Tarik Fatic, 33, claimed. “Not a day passes without both (Del Young boy and Rodney) crossing my mind.”
Known below as Mucke, which in fact indicates something like wheeling and dealing, “Just Fools and Steeds” ended up being widely prominent throughout what was still Yugoslavia from the 1980s onwards.
Murals with photos of primary personalities have actually been repainted on the wall surfaces; numerous coffee shops were called after the collection, while seeing stars were welcomed with craze.
The Reliant Regal was made by a British business, well-known for its eccentric lorries, that failed in 2002.
In Sarajevo, individuals swing, take photos with their phones, beep their horns when they see the yellow van in the roads. The Fatic bros imported it from Manchester 6 months back after a lengthy search. It took a while to sign up the uncommon car, claimed Mirnes Fatic, 38.
” It is a really wonderful sensation. It’s a delight every single time I go with an experience in the city,” he claimed, confessing that it additionally was “a wonderful marketing action.”
And it’s not simply the van. The Fatic bros have actually additionally called their business after the collection– Only Fools and Steeds Brothers Mucke. There have actually been some questions just how customers and financial institutions would certainly respond yet it ended up truly well, Mirnes included.
” We wish and think that this moment following year, we will certainly be millionaires,” he grinned, making use of the well-known expression from the program.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All legal rights booked. This product might not be released, program, revised or rearranged without approval.
