Zola Budd, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

Zola Budd n.

[the S.Afr. runner Zola Budd Pieterse (b.1966) was permitted to represent England after a lengthy press campaign; she ran against the US champion Mary Decker Slaney and stepped on her foot; Decker was considered the superior athlete; thus Budd is equated with the slow vehicles]

(S.Afr.)

1. a black taxi.

1987		Pace Oct. 60: Vusi [Maranatha] claims invention of the now popular name ‘Zola Budd’ for a Toyota taxi in 1985 [DSAE].
1990		R. Malan My Traitor’s Heart (1991) 259: It was a Zola Budd, a twelve-seat microbus used as a black taxi.
2005		travelAfrica 🌐 In Kenya the minibuses are called matatus [...] In South Africa they are nicknamed ‘Zola Budds’, after the young Afrikaner sprinter who broke the anti-apartheid sport boycott in the 1980s.

2. a slow armoured police vehicle.

1985		Style Oct. 41: ‘Johnnies’ (soldiers), ‘Zola Budds’ (slow SADF hippos) and ‘Mary Deckers’ (fast hippos) [DSAE].
1996		CyberBraai Lex. at www.matriots.com 🌐 They have also learned that ‘Zola Budd’ is township slang for a police armored personnel carrier, that ‘Mary Decker’ is a faster model of the Zola Budd.