Hi, I'm the guy who debunked the "Soviet steel" myth by pointing out (through research in the US State Department's publicly accessible archives) that: 1. The Soviet Union didn't have enough steel at its hands to pay the Italians with it; 2. The Italian government was against such a deal anyway, because it would further derail the Italy-USSR trade balance, which was already favoring the Soviet side as it was; 3. Let's entertain the "yeah, there's no evidence that a deal of this kind was ever struck, but this doesn't mean they didn't reach such an agreement" crowd. OK then! Even if such a deal had ever been in place, any metallurgist will tell you that you can recycle steel even from shipwrecks and make excellent alloys with it; 4. Finally, even if such a deal had ever been in place, Alfa Romeo, which was NOT part of the Fiat Group, was under no obligation to use it, and Fiat were under no obligation to offer it to them. Here's my piece for Driven To Write where these things are pointed out - it's the third part of my series on the diplomacy and politics behind the founding of the VAZ factory: driventowrite.com/2022/05/17/vaz-diplomacy-politics-and-urban-legends-part-3/ And finally... I'd like to point out that a certain Mr Martin Buckley had everyone believe that De Gaulle could both have already spent two years pining for the fjords and somehow veto Citroën-Fiat joint ventures. Oh well, that's car "journalism" for you.
Many thanks for this Konstantinos - I read your very interesting article a while ago but couldn't find it again to cite it in more detail for the video. I'm a big fan of DrivenToWrite, the best car blog by miles. Apologies for the delay in getting your comment posted - it was held for review because of the link and I got behind with the reviewing. I've now pinned it, as various commenters are _still_ saying we're wrong.
One more fact: anybody who has lived in Russia will tell you that Russian roads are ten (10) times worse for making cars rust because of the snow, ice and grit that is used on the roads 6 months a year. Russian cars need to be much more rust-proof than others, or they would rot within a year. AvtoVAZ used thicker steel on Ladas (called Zhiguli in Russia) than on the original Fiats.
@@StarHorseLover2012 I seem to recall that an 1980 X reg Skoda Estelle I owned in early 90's had a thickness of metal in the body panels that I have not come across since on any other car.
I owned one of the last HPE VX 1985. It was my everyday driver for 13 years. Being a late one has galvanising so minimal rust. Made a superb tow car. The supercharger gave masses of torque. Bought with 160,000km on it and sold with 320,000km. It was still going strong.
In Australia we had the same 'Trial by Media' with certain makes of vehicles. Falsehoods and untruths running rampant in the search for an Emmy Award and justification for their own existence. Thank you for this enlightening video.
I would just like to say that back in the day my wife and I each had Beta saloons and then she went on to have an HPE. We loved all three, all were reliable and we had no rust issues. We never understood where the bad reputation came from but these cars certainly didn't deserve the reputation that they were landed with.
I had a Monte Carlo and a Beta coupe. Have had a lot of cars but I still think they were my favorites, very underrated. Great fun, Italian character, and timeless handsome design
I had a work mate who bought a saloon. While parked in the works car park, someone driving with their leg in plaster rear ended it! He kept it a while then flogged it to some dodgy bloke. A week later he was knocked out of bed at 3 in the morning by the police as he was still shown as the owner. It had been found in a canal (lights still on) after being used as a get-a-way car! It WAS fast! 2.0(?)ltr twin cam twin Dellortos!
I should add that a few condemned Betas had a brief reprieve. When I moved to Newbury in 1984/5 I struck up a friendship with a guy who lived in Hermitage up the road. I think his name was Ian Walker and he ran a racing school - he later died in a plane crash if memory serves. He was a Lancia fan and had a couple of the early Martini striped Deltas from Lancia. He had acquired two scrap Betas 'back door' en route to Halletts. One was a dark brown 2000 saloon, one a light blue Coupe. He has a very nice red Spyder and needed a rear 3/4 window but Lancia could not supply one. The 2000 saloon was bodily good but needed the sub mounts doing - I gave up before I even started as it would prove impossible to register it again due to a COD. Pity - it would have been a nice car for 50 quid and a weekend of welding!😂
I remember reading the Autocar road test of a Beta 2000 Berlina when they first came out. They liked it. It was technically advanced, refined, handled and rode well, and was fairly fast for a saloon car. Really, it was a prototypical modern fwd car.
Loved the video and I agree 100%! Betas were lovely little cars. My dad had one whom he bought new in '79 and I am told it is still driving around in Palermo (Sicily)today. I'd love to get one myself but here in Australia they are very hard to come by.... I should probably follow your suggestion and import one in the UK.
There's still one model in the Lancia range, isn't there (the Ypsilon)? 🙂 But FIAT don't seem to have enough money to develop a full range of cars for FIAT or Alfa Romeo themselves (no Giulietta replacement, no Punto replacement etc), let alone for Lancia as well. For whatever reason, a new FCA product is more likely to be badged or rebadged as a Dodge these days, e.g., the Dodge Dart compact sedan (also sold as the Fiat Viaggio) or the Dodge Hornet CUV, the rebadged Alfa Romeo Tonale. There was also the Chrysler 200 that was discontinued like the Dart. Unfortunately I think FIAT Chrysler have too many brands, rather than not enough brands. Already Alfa Romeo are prohibited by FIAT from competing against Maserati in the large luxury sedan or large luxury SUV market for example. Similarly, FIAT probably don't want Lancia to compete against Alfa Romeo, since they are already struggling to grow Alfa Romeo sales as it is (AFAIK, particularly in North America), let alone try to market and grow another brand.
@TassieLorenzo FCA is no more, having merged with PSA (Peugeot-Citroën) to become Stellantis, which is allowing each of their many marques, including Lancia, a decade to make a business case for their continued survival. Despite having only a single remaining model sold only in Italy, the Ypsilon, Lancia has still outsold all Alfa Romeo models across all of Europe combined. Lancia apparently will be teamed up with DS and Alfa Romeo as the premium marques in Stellantis' portfolio.
As a young boy around 9 my neighbour got a black one. Around 83 i was amazed at this sports car my neighbour took me for a ride ..unfourtunalty it was rotted away before i was a teenager.
Brilliant video - I really enjoyed that - thanks. The Beta HPEs, cabriolets and coupes do it for me - especially the late Volumex models. I completely agree with you on the rust issue - Vauxhall FE Victor front wings for example were almost service items, lasting no more than 2 years, and 70s Datsuns would happily fizz away in drizzle. The only thing you didn’t mention was dreadful consumer programme That’s Life, who seemed to have it in for Lancia, and who ran more than one piece about the recall scheme. As you rightly said, no one cared to mention the industry leading 6 yr anti-corrosion warranty, or the tie in with SAAB, who brought their expertise in rust prevention to the Italian company. At least Top Gear (under Clarkson) has always had good things to say about Lancia, for which I applaud them! Finally, the 037 is an absolute masterpiece of a car!!!
Glad you enjoyed it Simon! Completely agree. You’re absolutely right about That’s Life and I did originally plan to mention that too, but I cut it out of the final edit for too much swearing 😬
A stout defence. I think there was also just a small whiff of xenophobia about the Beta story. Furthermore, I'd speculate that the Italian (industrial) association with the USSR was also used in a tiny way as a cold war slight in the UK.
Interesting review , I recall a colleague's husband was service manager at an upmarket local garage that became a Lancia franchise and were already Rolls-Royce dealers.He had use of an HPE in a mimosa yellow ( SVE 492S ) and often rode in it and it was a particularly brisk and pleasant car with what I considered at the time the most ' drop-dead ' gorgeous looks !.Very sadly , the awful publicity at the time affected their sales and a wonderful long-existing garage with a superb service reputation was sent into receivership.
Dad had a Beta Coupé, he didn't think it rusted any more quickly than any other car of the era. A cost of rust proof underneath and it lasted him 2 years before being sold on. The only issue Dad remembered was how hard it was to sell on afterwards in the early 80s, the damage to the car's reputation having been done by that stage.
A great summary of the Betas and their U.K. story. My appreciation of the video, was of how well you did this. My appreciation of the cars is fuelled by my ownership in the 80s of: a HPE, a Coupe and a Monte Carlo.
Fiat headquarters in Frankfurt basically had no used car lot. All Lancia trade-ins were kicked out as fast as possible. I bought a few very cheap cars there during the 80's.
Well documented except concerning the Russian recycled war fleet steel which was used to build italian cars in the 80/90's and IS the reason why cars rusted away. Condensation evaporates in warm climates. Anyway. I lived and drove in these cars in Italy at the time - great fun by the way - and YES they were made with poorly treated Russian steel that rusted. Panels simply started blistering under the paint. MANY recalls were being made. Interesting to note that although the recall did NOT concern the Beta HPE; rust is why the car HE had a down payment on, failed it's MOT. LOL. More "condensation" 25 years on I suppose .....
H incrociato una 037 rossa, identica a quella di questo video, proprio qualche giorno fa, non lontano da casa mia. Ho rigirato la mia macchina per poterla vedere meglio ma purtroppo già era andata via... Anche se ho visto questa 037 solo per qualche secondo, posso dire di essere stato molto fortunato, è un auto magnifica
Martin, congratulations on another gem of a video 👌🏼👏🏼😀 Very well researched and full of passion for these wonderful motorcars. Excellent stuff, can't wait for the road test. And congratulations on the 3000 subs too 🎉
Thank you for standing up for the Lancia Beta! They didn’t sell too well over here in the USA, but every once in awhile, I’ll see one advertised online. Haven’t seen one in the wild in at least 20 years, though.
I had a 2.0litre HPE in the early 80s , a really comfortable car with a really smooth engine. I would have appreciated it a lot more now with its dash board full of gauges.
Great review and I loved the Beta range. My dad was going for a Beta HPE but saw and bought an Alfa GTV 2.0, very beautiful but not the nicest gearbox, often wondered hoe the HPE would have been to drive. Probably more practical. Always loved Lancia and hope Stellantis will resurrect the marque.
Brother had a black Y plate HPE ,looked like a black hearse specifically for mafia funerals.. Lovely motor and the twin cam was very reliable in the whole ,always on the hunt for a Volumex but like rocking horse shit…
Lovely cars but the tin worm was a real and genuine concern, poorly handled. I think That's Life really did the bad damage though in what now be a slanderous case. I knew a gentleman who had his bright red 2.0 Beta Saloon condemned under a recall at Auto Yachts Gillingham, the then LANCHEEAH DEALER at just over 18 months old with rotten Cross member to body mounts and much all around it, he finally found out why it clunked taking up drive😀.....he wasn't a vet and his engine didn't fall out.😉 The recall was either a redesigned box section welded into place if possible OR a buy back but, such was the press most opted for the buy back option. My friends Beta at 18 months was unfortunately too far gone. Yet I bought a 1981 when 8 years old that was fine. The later ones had far better build. It should be noted that the Beta Saloon rot problem was a global issue. Russian steel myth....I don't think anyone ever got to the source of this completely untrue rumour....Italy produced much of the steel for many OEMs, not just the FIAT Group....this myth spread to VAG too. Just simple poor corrosion protection and even poorer panel edge finishing, which haunted Daimler in the 90s to the surprise of many. My 'old Grali is my favorite car I've owned.
Correct. If the car wasn't bad it could be repaired - basically a clean up and rustproofing the sub mounts but any holes meant it had to be condemned. Later Betas from '81 ish onwards (when the Trevi arrived) were vastly better - part galvanising, front arch liners and wax injection. Sadly, the Delta took up the slack by being another rust bucket - even the roof used to rot on those.
I did my apprenticeship at a alpha , fiat and lancia dealer in Sydney Australia in the 70s and one thing common about the Italian cars of that era was rust enough that at least 1in 10 were to rusty to be put on the road ie put fingers through floor pan and sills and rotten pillars . The other big problem was kleber tyres they often had catastrophic failure before they even left the showroom floor . I rolled a sud 3 times going around a corner at about 50kmh . Have to give lancia credit for how easy they were to work on and reliability just a pity about the rust . We only got the beta coupe , HPE and the 4 door beta here in Oz
Thank you clearing the truth i own a couple of betas mostly spiders they are excelent cars to restore and preserve. The brillant multilink lightweight rear suspension was sophisticated yet simple in design with the rear sway bar acting as an addition link. There a bunch of manufacturers that copied the exact layout lancia was the first. I am fan of many european cars and own and restore mercedes and bmws from 60 70 80s . I had sevaral bmws with severly rotted strut towers that occurred rather early in its life very difficult to repair trust me i had a Bavaria and a 80 528i and now a 70 2800cs. Bmws rotted quite a lot in the 70s but never got the bad rap. beta rot is usually the floors and the boxed section where the subframe meets not a difficult fix. Strut tower almost never rot. The rust around the wind shield can be tricky and hood edges can be a bit tricky. But betas are no worse than many of the european cars of the same period. We worked on a good amount of betas saw rot in the box section but never one with the subframe detached... The russian steel is bull italian cars rotted due to the steel no being properly protected coupled with strikes. We have repaired 850 spiders where boxed section were bare steel! Lovely cars they really rotted badly bertone did not properly protect the cars.
I owned a blue HPE 2000 in 1983. Absolutely beautiful car. Unfortunately it did rust badly and a local VW garage part exchanged it for a new Polo. They gave me good money.
UNBELIEVABLE! I bought my Beta HPE in 1996. it is a 1978 first series 1600 cc. I had such a fun with her around all Italy. The "doppio corpo" Weber, if well calibrated used to give a sort of turbo push, the 4 disk brakes system was excellent, as was the suspension scheme. And if you want to play there is a real trumpet!!!!😄😄😄 Can't believe there's a you tube channel with Lancia Beta lover!
i had 2 Lancias in the 80s. Trevi 2000 auto in gold bought (NRD 614X) and Beta Spyder 2000 in blue (NMG 853X) - where are they now ? The Trevi had the most fantastic dashboard and the Spyder was a great drive. We didn't have cameras to hand in those days so I have very few pictures of either but I do recall reversing out of a drive with the drivers door open to see out because of the murky and split plastic window on the spyder . . . I hit the gate post and the door folded forwards on me.... that would be called a 'FAIL' now but then it was just a typical daily hazard back then !
I can’t believe I made a Lancia Beta/Trevi video and didn’t mention THAT dashboard! I even have some film of it too. Ah well, something to save for another day.
They were a fucking good looking car. My uncle had one, and drove it hard. Not sure what happened to it, but I miss that, and his FB Vauxhall VX 4/90, which he brought to NZ from Luxembourg. Indestructible.
Well, I remember a German car magazine of the time that compared the 2 novelties of the market, Beta and BMW 5 Series, commenting that BMW would have to take advantage of some aspects of the Beta to be up to it.
I'm sorry, as a Beta and Fulvia owner 'back in the day', Italian and an MOT tester at the time. I must confess to not watching the video to the end, I was incensed by your lame excuses and half truths. Sure the press sensationalised and got in wrong (nothing fresh there). However the bodywork corrosion protection on these cars (all Lancia's) was atrocious. I have PERSONALLY failed Beta coupes for subframe corrosion on their 1st MOT, that's at 3 years of age in the UK. I also rebuilt a 9 year old Fulvia coupe (probably the best car I've ever owned) that was absolutely rotten. It did not even have any paint on parts of the car that could not be reached with a spray gun 😲 I love Lancias but all the stories ARE TRUE and their reputation justly deserved ;-)
Back in the late 70s I worked for a company supplying giant timing displays for horse shows etc and for a while Lancia sponsored them, as well as plastering them with Lancia branding they gave us some Berlinas for towing the units about, they were pretty ugly but drove beautifully and were very luxurious for the day. I really enjoyed driving them around for the couple of years we had them. My boss managed to get an HPE out of them too, that was fun to drive.
My first car was a 6 year old renault 16... It lasted 12 months before dissolving. Undaunted, my second car was a beautiful dark blue Trevi with space age interior... Sold it to an Alfa owning friend a couple of years later... No rust issues... Just smiles!
The italian car's...made between an espresso a cigarette and talking about the beautiful woman of the Noth Europe at lunch time..in my days..cheers from Canada 🇨🇦..
Well said! I’m a 1970s Fiat man but lots of why you say about the Beta is cross applicable. Very pleased that you, too, are helping to debunk the Russian steel fallacy / bollock rot nonsense; it’s simply not true, as Matteo of Roadster Life has also explained. I’m pleased to have stumbled over your channel and will be adding you to my subs list. Cheers. Uppermiddlepetrolhead.
I agree the HPE is the prettiest Beta, I had a Volumex one in gray. It now lives in Singapore 🇸🇬. I’m currently working on a Berlina that was rescued from a breakers yard, last on the road in 1992 then was removed from a garage when the owner died. Body is very solid due to having rust protection, hopefully it will be on the road next year.
My dad a Lancia Beta in the eighties. The car did not have any major issues. I learned to drive stick on my dad's Lancia. The exhaust sound was very unique and the car was very comfortable. After few minor issues, and the fact we lived in SE Asia where Lancia parts were hard to come by, my dad ended up trading the Lancia for a mint Peugeot 504, which was another beautiful car.
Many moons ago. (Mid 1980s). My brothers partner had a Beta saloon. Such a lovely comfortable car to ride in. Here in New Zealand we were aware of the supposed major rust problems. This particular Beta failed to live up to the hype. Frankly it did not produce rust any faster than any other Italian car of the age.
Nissan Navara pick ups (of which there are 1000's) suffer huge chassis rot problems. Spanish built ones had no rust protection on their woefully thin chassis which results in catastrophic failiure in only a few years. Nissan have done their best to cover this up and have been secretly buying back vehicles on a massive scale. i have personal eperience when my best friend bought a rotten one (he paid £9000 for it) it's chassis was rotten. After researching he took it to Nissan who said it was 'fine' and gave him the short shift. At the next MOT it was given a red ticket so he took pictures and sent the details to Nissan, they offered him £9000 for it on condition he sign a non disclosure agreement and had it picked up. I believe there is a picture of a field near a docks (Southampton?) full of used Navaras being shipped to Africa. So, these problems still exist but are handled in a different and better way than Lancia (probably due to Lancias experience) and if you're in the market for a Navara make sure it isn't Spanish built and do your research first...and check the chassis and cross members at the rear.
Lolol! I had a '75 Beta coupe when I was living in Phoenix in the mid-'80s. Nice to drive, very comfy interior, a little heavy for its power. Oh, and rust. Lots and lots of rust. Haven't seen one on the road in decades.
Hard to imagine, right? 😉 In fairness I don’t think they’re by any means the worst, and I believe Clarkson has said some nice (and well researched) things about Lancia too.
My father had a Lancia Beta berlina 1.3 back in 1979 here in Italy. I was only 9 years old but i remember the car was always breaking down and extremely unreliable , no rust but when he tried starting it up there was a sort of a 50/50% chance it would 😏
I always assumed that the R16-like four door model was a hatchback. It should have been. I saw one in a dealer showroom in San Francisco and never one on the road ever. US cars in winter road salt areas would start to get body rust after three or four years all the time before galvanized bodies and before that dips in various coatings. Not just in the 70's but forever. I think Audi started galvanizing bodies, the other Germans and then American companies and lastly Japanese. Japanese cars were very reliable but until they caught up on rustproof bodies a few years later than the rest were rust prone.
The Beta 4 door was a competitor to the 3 Series in its heyday. Fiat / Lancia should never have deserted the UK. The market is crying out for prestige marques provided build quality is assured. A lesson for Jaguar here.
great stuff. those of us with a modicum of intelligence (and old enough to remember) never took any of that tripe seriously, certainly not any of the inane bollocks spewed forth by the 'journalists' on top gear. not counting william woollard. obviously.
anything 70s and 80s in a goofy suit is better than any modern car. 1. i can fix them with a hammer, screw driver, monkey wrench and a belt. 2.they look like the car equivalent of 2 chilren in an adult suit. 3. simple mods and some head work can usually double or sometimes triple the torque and make them a blast to drive. 4. they are more reliable by far with proper care which means check all fluids every fueling, and top off as needed, get inspections every year at the hottest time of year. all my oldies were sold for way more than i paid, and cost me very little to own and drive. all my more modern stuff was extremely expensive and only lasted a few months before very expensive repairs.
These beta cars are extremely unreliable with all sorts of problems due to sub standard components. I guess they don’t properly cure rubber or heat treat steel. Electrical connections always find way to go haywire. Plastic lever break at most critical way. I still remember manually operated window regulator were made of some tiny soft metal gear with perhaps 10 teeth that moves steel spring like cable mechanism up and down. These gear teeth tend to round off easily and won’t engage to move window at all. Even though the parts are extremely expensive they were impossible to find even in its days!!! I had one in Southern California so rust or Russian steel crap wasn’t an issue.
Saw a reply mentioning window regulators. I had similar problem. Rebuilt a couple of damaged units to make one good regulator. Windows required very "hard winding" due to different curvitures of door and window frames. Mounted my new rebuilt regulator with drilled out holes in the metal window frame using 10-32 screws and "nylok " nuts allowing a small amount of "slop". Window winding then required much less effort and still sealed properly. Never had a problem after that. Performed same modification on both coupes I owned.
Lancia was let down in Britain by poor sales management. Who else would win the World Rally Championship multiple times and fail to capitalise on the achievement? I tried to buy a new Lancia Prisma in the late 1980s; the local dealer had no sales literature on the model, and as soon as they realised I wasn't interested in buying a Delta Integrale, just lost interest. I tried a dealer further away who were most helpful, until they learned of my address; then they just referred me to the other dealer, saying they were unable to 'steal' another dealer's customers!
My dad loved his Lancia, the rust was no worse than any other car of the period. We lived near the sea which was probably a factor. The biggest issue was the gearbox it failed on the way back from the Alps, it was all replaced free of charge. He ran that car until it was no longer economical to keep on the road. It was comfortable and and fast. Lancia always made good cars.
Despite your enthusiasm for Lancia' s their rustability ensures their are no Lancia' dealers in the UK. Lancia's rally successes were with spaceframed and fibreglass specials adorned with the Lancia' badge.
There was a kid at school who was very proud of his dad's Beta, we used to rib him about it. I'm an engineer for a Fiat subsidiary, I sort of understand what happened here, aquisti found a matey company who made the parts and the engineer lost the argument of what they wanted to do to reduce costs, these meetings can be lengthy and very penetrative, or the parts were made without sufficient control, or both, that was the culture then and is thankfully a lot different now, I prefer Alfa's myself.
I've had 17 Lancia in my life all fantastic cars people have no idea about this great marque. Along with alfa romeo you get ooo reliability from people who have never been near let alone drove these amazing cars
I was a apprentice at the company in the early 80s that imported Lancia cars into the UK and also that collected all the buy backs, not just simple recall these cars were all scraped, at a huge cost to the Company, our company started to rust proof all new Lancia cars but there name was finished.I saw all the cars with there subframes hanging out, its not a myth.
The coupe is abeauty, even in comparison to current cardesigns. The brother of my fathers brothers wife had one when they were inroduced. My father and and my uncle drove ford taunusses. The beta was from another planet. What greatand sporty car
unloved car, pple said it was not a proper lancia as the fulvia was. back in the '90s i saw many in the junkyards with low km, lancia owners of the time were usually elderly. still better than the prisma
My aunt had a Berlina back in the day. I remember driving through Texas in August. The air conditioning was pathetic and the engine was spinning at over 4,000 RPM trying to keep up with traffic. It had an endless stream of mechanical and electrical problems and rust showed up within 18 months of her buying it. She eventually moved to Wisconsin and his car did not like cold weather at all often becoming difficult if not impossible to start. The rust accelerated exponentially due to Wisconsin's salted winter roads. But if you ask her today she'll look back through rose colored glasses and remember it fondly.
Worst even, Betas in other markets did not have this fame of being death traps and rusting rapidly but as English is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world, now everyone says they rusted like mad.
what I remember more of Lancia beta berlina is the roomy and confortable internal space. no fiat and no alfa was so good for long travels. to achieve such a level of comfort you should buy an expensive higher class foreign car. I think English people imagine Italy much more sunny than the reality. most of them don't go to holydays in foggy cold northern places as Milan or Turin. in the seventies rust was a problem of all cars in all countries, not a special problem of Italian ones but it was easy to make the equation: sunny italy=less care of rust.
Good point. I’ve worked in Milan and seen all sorts of weather, including snow. And I own two Vauxhalls, a Rover and a Renault from the 1970s: it definitely wasn’t just the Italian makers that could have done better with rustproofing 😬
I had a beta salon in 83 it was about 5 years old when I got it a 2000 & I remember in 92 I was working on a house in a village in Oxfordshire & the owner opened the garage door & lo & behold a lancia strattos in white even the it was a rare car
A sad part of being a car enthusiast is people who don't actually know anything about cars but want to be perceived as enthusiast spout the same old drivel they heard off hand about things without having done any real research into the issue itself. Even mechanics with decades of experience fall into the same trap.
Hi Thanks for the informative vid .I bought a second hand beta in the late seventies loved it ,it was a yellow four door as in your vid ,it had Weber carbs fitted and really went well,I never had any problem with the engine panel but where previous owner had parked it on a grass centred driveway during his ownership the inner sills and floor pan was in a poor state and I had to do a lot of welding
I remember how popular they were in the 70s and a particular family friend had several of them. The 4 door failed its MOT when only a few years old and he swapped it for an HPE that was in much better shape and he had a Targa topped one too I seem to remember.. But that also succumbed to rust after a few short years. But so did so many cars in those days. I remember going to the local scrap yard for parts for my 1958 Morris Minor in the late 70s and realising that there were loads of 10 year old Vauxhalls, Fords, Fiats and others all in dreadful states of rust while my Morris was rust-free and twice their age. But we lived only 20 mins from the coast and, in those days, people would regularly drive onto beaches - that didn't help. Apart from the real and imagined rust, the Beta had a great reputation as a real driver's car.
I had a friend who had one of these. He had the classic voltage regulator failure. The instrument and dash lights would get brighter and brighter until there was a strong smell of burning !
The reporter actually said it was a public relations exercise to cover up the rust problem and not a public relations campaign as stated so yes it can be both! Lancias don’t have a rust problem but if you are restoring the metalwork simply use Weetabix and spray it silver. I find this replicates the original metal work perfectly.
I had some experience driving a then 8 year old 1976 Lancia B 2000 saloon, and for a mid-seventies car it drove extremely well. And it was practically rust-free. Nordic spec Lancias had good rust protection, if only you took care to renew it every 2-3 years.
Well said... I have been an Italian car lover for many years and owned quite a few from Fiat & Alfa, mainly Alfasud`s, i worked as a car body repairer at an Austin/Rover dealership from the mid 1970`s... back then all cars rusted badly! but today many people see their favorite brands, especially old Ford`s through rose tinted glasses..
Agreed that the car was essentially a scapegoat for the whole industry, though rolling the alfa sud probably didn't help. However a friend of mine drove an old fiat into his garage once (that was heavily biodegraded) and the engine broke it's mounts. It was a very long time ago, but I saw it 😆
My father had beta 1.8 and HPE 20ie silver Excellent cars also Lancia Thema 20ie Turbo Delta 1.5 and Prisma. I love the Hpe 20ie my father gave it to me when i was 21 GOOD VIDEO
I bet a similar year ford wasn't as inspiring as this. Fiat and Ford had so many great moments, as always I felt more passion for the Alfa. Thanks for reminding us how quirky is not a bad thing!
We had a two litre Beta sedan, very comfortable and spacious but what struck me was the dynamics, it was just fun to drive and so stable, it went where you pointed it and that was it.
Superbly written, sounded like the people who wrote 'Blackadder' had written it (not the series 1 writers, they should still be in prison). Brilliant video, made me laugh about 8 times so thanks. That grey coupe at the end was lovely.
Series 1 written by Rowan Atkinson and Richard Curtis, 2 to 4 by Ben Elton and Richard Curtis . If Atkinson and Curtis were still in prison, would series 2 to 4 still be so good?
Nice to see that gathering of the almost-forgotten (in the States) Lancia Beta series! As a young lad of 17 (living in Australia at the time), the Monte Carlo/Scorpion was my favorite of the new cars of the time (ca. 1975); the Alfa Alfetta GT hatch and the Datsun 260-Z being others I fancied...Nice review, and looking forward to the drive test! How's the Aerodeck going?
Glad you enjoyed it! I’m planning to do some more metalwork on the Aerodeck this weekend - the day job has been getting in the way quite badly for the last few months but is quiet again now.
Agree with your honest assessment. Excellent cars (when working). I bought an HPE ie in 1989. It was an automatic (Made by AP and loosely based on the Austin Maxi auto box- yes really!) Needless to say it packed up so i converted it to manual in 1993. Sold in 1998 - XCW500Y, where are you now?
Thanks for the great video. Finally an honest review of a very good car. To prove your point, the much fabled rust issue of the Beta is purely a UK one. Elsewhere the car.... rusted just like any other car in the market in the 1970s! It was entirely a PR disaster thanks to the proverbially venomous UK press, with likely a thumb up or two from the likes of BL or the Dagenham folks. I remember seeing Cortinas, Humters, Maxis and Toledos held together with 'Sunday morning' spray paint and go-fast decal stripes!!!!! 😂😂😂
My father bought a Beta Berlina 2000 new back in 1979 when I was 5, he had Tuff Kote Dinol rust treatment applied from new and kept it till 1983 when it had covered just shy of 50k miles. He had no major issues with the car, there were no visible signs of rust when he sold it. Yes it was garaged and looked after very well but my father has only fond memories of the car. He sold it privately to a local chap and we saw it regularly in use till the late 1980s, I can still remember the reg number, RCK 182T, bought from Grosvenor Motors in Preston. Happy Days
Some lovely cars on there. I owned a 1980 HPE back in the 1980s - my first car- and a friend owned multiple Capris. I couldn't believe how badly his car handled (especially in the wet) compared to mine when I finally got to drive it. I thought all such sporty models handled decently. Nope....
The 'saloon only' rust story is absolute nonsense. I was a regular customer at the scrapyard that processed Betas (Hallett Metals in Crewkerne) and all Beta variants were being crushed. I don't think Monte Carlos were being scrapped but there were loads of Coupes, HPE's and Spyders there all stacked up. In 1982, some were only three or four years old being Series 2 cars. I remember a lovely looking red Coupe being reversed off the lorry and being taken for its last drive up into the yard.
As I said, there were Coupe, HPE and Spyder models in the scrapyard as well plus Series 2 saloons. The subframe and floor were the same on all models. I was there and saw it - in summer 1982 I had a weekend job there. In the video you can see a Spyder shell being swung by a crane. That was at the far end of the yard where they were stacked up. The public were not allowed near them and no parts were allowed to be sold from them. Radios could be removed by employees but once the wheels and engine were removed, the cars were flattened (they didn’t have an actual crusher) and sent off to the steelworks - in South Wales iirc.
Forgot: it wasnt a box section on the floor but two rounded looking sections spot welded to the area where the floor met the vertical bulkhead. They would rot out there until the mounts broke free and the rot would extend in all directions. It was repairable but any holes and that was it, curtains. I guy I worked with in the 90’s worked as a mechanic at Portman Garages and saw quite a few. Tony Tapping iirc.
The Lancia Beta drives like a surprisingly modern car because, well, it is -- the very first model ever mass-produced to the overall engineering formula that ultimately won out in the auto industry worldwide. FWD with a transverse DOHC engine, 5-speed transaxle with its own oil supply (not shared with the engine sump), 4-wheel disc power brakes, rack and pinion steering (even ZF power-assisted in some specs), fully-independent MacPherson strut-based suspension with a multilink rear -- few cars had _any_ of that, let alone _all_ of that, when the Beta debuted in 1972, nor many more by the time it finally retired a dozen years later.
My first car was a 1977 Beta berlina 2000, had it from 1980 - 1981. It was grate fun, very good handling, and in period quite quick. Unfortunately I run off the road and ended on the roof with it. My fault, not the car. I always felt it was one of the best cars I had :)
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Hi, I'm the guy who debunked the "Soviet steel" myth by pointing out (through research in the US State Department's publicly accessible archives) that:
1. The Soviet Union didn't have enough steel at its hands to pay the Italians with it;
2. The Italian government was against such a deal anyway, because it would further derail the Italy-USSR trade balance, which was already favoring the Soviet side as it was;
3. Let's entertain the "yeah, there's no evidence that a deal of this kind was ever struck, but this doesn't mean they didn't reach such an agreement" crowd. OK then! Even if such a deal had ever been in place, any metallurgist will tell you that you can recycle steel even from shipwrecks and make excellent alloys with it;
4. Finally, even if such a deal had ever been in place, Alfa Romeo, which was NOT part of the Fiat Group, was under no obligation to use it, and Fiat were under no obligation to offer it to them.
Here's my piece for Driven To Write where these things are pointed out - it's the third part of my series on the diplomacy and politics behind the founding of the VAZ factory: driventowrite.com/2022/05/17/vaz-diplomacy-politics-and-urban-legends-part-3/
And finally... I'd like to point out that a certain Mr Martin Buckley had everyone believe that De Gaulle could both have already spent two years pining for the fjords and somehow veto Citroën-Fiat joint ventures. Oh well, that's car "journalism" for you.
Many thanks for this Konstantinos - I read your very interesting article a while ago but couldn't find it again to cite it in more detail for the video. I'm a big fan of DrivenToWrite, the best car blog by miles.
Apologies for the delay in getting your comment posted - it was held for review because of the link and I got behind with the reviewing. I've now pinned it, as various commenters are _still_ saying we're wrong.
One more fact: anybody who has lived in Russia will tell you that Russian roads are ten (10) times worse for making cars rust because of the snow, ice and grit that is used on the roads 6 months a year.
Russian cars need to be much more rust-proof than others, or they would rot within a year. AvtoVAZ used thicker steel on Ladas (called Zhiguli in Russia) than on the original Fiats.
@@StarHorseLover2012 I seem to recall that an 1980 X reg Skoda Estelle I owned in early 90's had a thickness of metal in the body panels that I have not come across since on any other car.
Bravo Kosta
Never believed the russian steel story !
I owned one of the last HPE VX 1985.
It was my everyday driver for 13 years. Being a late one has galvanising so minimal rust.
Made a superb tow car. The supercharger gave masses of torque.
Bought with 160,000km on it and sold with 320,000km. It was still going strong.
In Australia we had the same 'Trial by Media' with certain makes of vehicles. Falsehoods and untruths running rampant in the search for an Emmy Award and justification for their own existence. Thank you for this enlightening video.
I would just like to say that back in the day my wife and I each had Beta saloons and then she went on to have an HPE. We loved all three, all were reliable and we had no rust issues. We never understood where the bad reputation came from but these cars certainly didn't deserve the reputation that they were landed with.
I had a Monte Carlo and a Beta coupe. Have had a lot of cars but I still think they were my favorites, very underrated. Great fun, Italian character, and timeless handsome design
I had a work mate who bought a saloon. While parked in the works car park, someone driving with their leg in plaster rear ended it! He kept it a while then flogged it to some dodgy bloke. A week later he was knocked out of bed at 3 in the morning by the police as he was still shown as the owner. It had been found in a canal (lights still on) after being used as a get-a-way car! It WAS fast! 2.0(?)ltr twin cam twin Dellortos!
That’s a great story!
I should add that a few condemned Betas had a brief reprieve. When I moved to Newbury in 1984/5 I struck up a friendship with a guy who lived in Hermitage up the road. I think his name was Ian Walker and he ran a racing school - he later died in a plane crash if memory serves. He was a Lancia fan and had a couple of the early Martini striped Deltas from Lancia. He had acquired two scrap Betas 'back door' en route to Halletts. One was a dark brown 2000 saloon, one a light blue Coupe. He has a very nice red Spyder and needed a rear 3/4 window but Lancia could not supply one. The 2000 saloon was bodily good but needed the sub mounts doing - I gave up before I even started as it would prove impossible to register it again due to a COD. Pity - it would have been a nice car for 50 quid and a weekend of welding!😂
I remember reading the Autocar road test of a Beta 2000 Berlina when they first came out. They liked it. It was technically advanced, refined, handled and rode well, and was fairly fast for a saloon car. Really, it was a prototypical modern fwd car.
Loved the video and I agree 100%! Betas were lovely little cars. My dad had one whom he bought new in '79 and I am told it is still driving around in Palermo (Sicily)today. I'd love to get one myself but here in Australia they are very hard to come by.... I should probably follow your suggestion and import one in the UK.
@Tony Monteleone grazie
Utterly brilliant analysis and presentation. It says it all. Lancia is such a special brand, I do wish they re-emerge from the ashes.
There's still one model in the Lancia range, isn't there (the Ypsilon)? 🙂 But FIAT don't seem to have enough money to develop a full range of cars for FIAT or Alfa Romeo themselves (no Giulietta replacement, no Punto replacement etc), let alone for Lancia as well.
For whatever reason, a new FCA product is more likely to be badged or rebadged as a Dodge these days, e.g., the Dodge Dart compact sedan (also sold as the Fiat Viaggio) or the Dodge Hornet CUV, the rebadged Alfa Romeo Tonale. There was also the Chrysler 200 that was discontinued like the Dart.
Unfortunately I think FIAT Chrysler have too many brands, rather than not enough brands. Already Alfa Romeo are prohibited by FIAT from competing against Maserati in the large luxury sedan or large luxury SUV market for example. Similarly, FIAT probably don't want Lancia to compete against Alfa Romeo, since they are already struggling to grow Alfa Romeo sales as it is (AFAIK, particularly in North America), let alone try to market and grow another brand.
Lancia are going to come back as EVs, unfortunately I can’t share the link on here.
@TassieLorenzo FCA is no more, having merged with PSA (Peugeot-Citroën) to become Stellantis, which is allowing each of their many marques, including Lancia, a decade to make a business case for their continued survival. Despite having only a single remaining model sold only in Italy, the Ypsilon, Lancia has still outsold all Alfa Romeo models across all of Europe combined. Lancia apparently will be teamed up with DS and Alfa Romeo as the premium marques in Stellantis' portfolio.
As a young boy around 9 my neighbour got a black one. Around 83 i was amazed at this sports car my neighbour took me for a ride ..unfourtunalty it was rotted away before i was a teenager.
Brilliant video - I really enjoyed that - thanks. The Beta HPEs, cabriolets and coupes do it for me - especially the late Volumex models. I completely agree with you on the rust issue - Vauxhall FE Victor front wings for example were almost service items, lasting no more than 2 years, and 70s Datsuns would happily fizz away in drizzle. The only thing you didn’t mention was dreadful consumer programme That’s Life, who seemed to have it in for Lancia, and who ran more than one piece about the recall scheme. As you rightly said, no one cared to mention the industry leading 6 yr anti-corrosion warranty, or the tie in with SAAB, who brought their expertise in rust prevention to the Italian company. At least Top Gear (under Clarkson) has always had good things to say about Lancia, for which I applaud them! Finally, the 037 is an absolute masterpiece of a car!!!
Glad you enjoyed it Simon!
Completely agree. You’re absolutely right about That’s Life and I did originally plan to mention that too, but I cut it out of the final edit for too much swearing 😬
@@GrandThriftAuto yes, the thought of That’s Life has a similar effect on me too!
@@simonhodgetts6530 "sausages"
A stout defence. I think there was also just a small whiff of xenophobia about the Beta story. Furthermore, I'd speculate that the Italian (industrial) association with the USSR was also used in a tiny way as a cold war slight in the UK.
Interesting review , I recall a colleague's husband was service manager at an upmarket local garage that became a Lancia franchise and were already Rolls-Royce dealers.He had use of an HPE in a mimosa yellow ( SVE 492S ) and often rode in it and it was a particularly brisk and pleasant car with what I considered at the time the most ' drop-dead ' gorgeous looks !.Very sadly , the awful publicity at the time affected their sales and a wonderful long-existing garage with a superb service reputation was sent into receivership.
Dad had a Beta Coupé, he didn't think it rusted any more quickly than any other car of the era. A cost of rust proof underneath and it lasted him 2 years before being sold on.
The only issue Dad remembered was how hard it was to sell on afterwards in the early 80s, the damage to the car's reputation having been done by that stage.
A great summary of the Betas and their U.K. story. My appreciation of the video, was of how well you did this. My appreciation of the cars is fuelled by my ownership in the 80s of: a HPE, a Coupe and a Monte Carlo.
Fiat headquarters in Frankfurt basically had no used car lot. All Lancia trade-ins were kicked out as fast as possible. I bought a few very cheap cars there during the 80's.
It's good to see someone challenging pub bore/armchair expert myths. Plus the guy is handsome.
There are beta things to do than peddle falsehoods
Almost as handsome as Barrington Shitpeas, but not quite 😉
So it was Beta than expected then?
Absolutely love this video. Really informative and great sense of humour whilst getting the point across
Thanks, that’s great to hear!
Well documented except concerning the Russian recycled war fleet steel which was used to build italian cars in the 80/90's and IS the reason why cars rusted away. Condensation evaporates in warm climates.
Anyway. I lived and drove in these cars in Italy at the time - great fun by the way - and YES they were made with poorly treated Russian steel that rusted. Panels simply started blistering under the paint.
MANY recalls were being made.
Interesting to note that although the recall did NOT concern the Beta HPE; rust is why the car HE had a down payment on, failed it's MOT. LOL. More "condensation" 25 years on I suppose .....
H incrociato una 037 rossa, identica a quella di questo video, proprio qualche giorno fa, non lontano da casa mia. Ho rigirato la mia macchina per poterla vedere meglio ma purtroppo già era andata via...
Anche se ho visto questa 037 solo per qualche secondo, posso dire di essere stato molto fortunato, è un auto magnifica
Martin, congratulations on another gem of a video 👌🏼👏🏼😀 Very well researched and full of passion for these wonderful motorcars. Excellent stuff, can't wait for the road test. And congratulations on the 3000 subs too 🎉
Thanks for all your support Frank 😊
Thank you for standing up for the Lancia Beta! They didn’t sell too well over here in the USA, but every once in awhile, I’ll see one advertised online. Haven’t seen one in the wild in at least 20 years, though.
I had a 2.0litre HPE in the early 80s , a really comfortable car with a really smooth engine. I would have appreciated it a lot more now with its dash board full of gauges.
Great review and I loved the Beta range. My dad was going for a Beta HPE but saw and bought an Alfa GTV 2.0, very beautiful but not the nicest gearbox, often wondered hoe the HPE would have been to drive. Probably more practical. Always loved Lancia and hope Stellantis will resurrect the marque.
Brother had a black Y plate HPE ,looked like a black hearse specifically for mafia funerals..
Lovely motor and the twin cam was very reliable in the whole ,always on the hunt for a Volumex but like rocking horse shit…
Lovely cars but the tin worm was a real and genuine concern, poorly handled. I think That's Life really did the bad damage though in what now be a slanderous case.
I knew a gentleman who had his bright red 2.0 Beta Saloon condemned under a recall at Auto Yachts Gillingham, the then LANCHEEAH DEALER at just over 18 months old with rotten Cross member to body mounts and much all around it, he finally found out why it clunked taking up drive😀.....he wasn't a vet and his engine didn't fall out.😉 The recall was either a redesigned box section welded into place if possible OR a buy back but, such was the press most opted for the buy back option. My friends Beta at 18 months was unfortunately too far gone. Yet I bought a 1981 when 8 years old that was fine. The later ones had far better build.
It should be noted that the Beta Saloon rot problem was a global issue.
Russian steel myth....I don't think anyone ever got to the source of this completely untrue rumour....Italy produced much of the steel for many OEMs, not just the FIAT Group....this myth spread to VAG too. Just simple poor corrosion protection and even poorer panel edge finishing, which haunted Daimler in the 90s to the surprise of many.
My 'old Grali is my favorite car I've owned.
Correct. If the car wasn't bad it could be repaired - basically a clean up and rustproofing the sub mounts but any holes meant it had to be condemned. Later Betas from '81 ish onwards (when the Trevi arrived) were vastly better - part galvanising, front arch liners and wax injection. Sadly, the Delta took up the slack by being another rust bucket - even the roof used to rot on those.
I did my apprenticeship at a alpha , fiat and lancia dealer in Sydney Australia in the 70s and one thing common about the Italian cars of that era was rust enough that at least 1in 10 were to rusty to be put on the road ie put fingers through floor pan and sills and rotten pillars . The other big problem was kleber tyres they often had catastrophic failure before they even left the showroom floor . I rolled a sud 3 times going around a corner at about 50kmh . Have to give lancia credit for how easy they were to work on and reliability just a pity about the rust . We only got the beta coupe , HPE and the 4 door beta here in Oz
Thank you clearing the truth i own a couple of betas mostly spiders they are excelent cars to restore and preserve. The brillant multilink lightweight rear suspension was sophisticated yet simple in design with the rear sway bar acting as an addition link. There a bunch of manufacturers that copied the exact layout lancia was the first. I am fan of many european cars and own and restore mercedes and bmws from 60 70 80s . I had sevaral bmws with severly rotted strut towers that occurred rather early in its life very difficult to repair trust me i had a Bavaria and a 80 528i and now a 70 2800cs. Bmws rotted quite a lot in the 70s but never got the bad rap. beta rot is usually the floors and the boxed section where the subframe meets not a difficult fix. Strut tower almost never rot. The rust around the wind shield can be tricky and hood edges can be a bit tricky. But betas are no worse than many of the european cars of the same period. We worked on a good amount of betas saw rot in the box section but never one with the subframe detached... The russian steel is bull italian cars rotted due to the steel no being properly protected coupled with strikes. We have repaired 850 spiders where boxed section were bare steel! Lovely cars they really rotted badly bertone did not properly protect the cars.
I owned a blue HPE 2000 in 1983. Absolutely beautiful car. Unfortunately it did rust badly and a local VW garage part exchanged it for a new Polo. They gave me good money.
UNBELIEVABLE! I bought my Beta HPE in 1996. it is a 1978 first series 1600 cc. I had such a fun with her around all Italy. The "doppio corpo" Weber, if well calibrated used to give a sort of turbo push, the 4 disk brakes system was excellent, as was the suspension scheme. And if you want to play there is a real trumpet!!!!😄😄😄 Can't believe there's a you tube channel with Lancia Beta lover!
i had 2 Lancias in the 80s. Trevi 2000 auto in gold bought (NRD 614X) and Beta Spyder 2000 in blue (NMG 853X) - where are they now ? The Trevi had the most fantastic dashboard and the Spyder was a great drive. We didn't have cameras to hand in those days so I have very few pictures of either but I do recall reversing out of a drive with the drivers door open to see out because of the murky and split plastic window on the spyder . . . I hit the gate post and the door folded forwards on me.... that would be called a 'FAIL' now but then it was just a typical daily hazard back then !
I can’t believe I made a Lancia Beta/Trevi video and didn’t mention THAT dashboard! I even have some film of it too. Ah well, something to save for another day.
They were a fucking good looking car.
My uncle had one, and drove it hard.
Not sure what happened to it, but I miss that, and his FB Vauxhall VX 4/90, which he brought to NZ from Luxembourg.
Indestructible.
Well, I remember a German car magazine of the time that compared the 2 novelties of the market, Beta and BMW 5 Series, commenting that BMW would have to take advantage of some aspects of the Beta to be up to it.
The Beta Coupe Volumex version is to die for!!!!!!!
I'm sorry, as a Beta and Fulvia owner 'back in the day', Italian and an MOT tester at the time. I must confess to not watching the video to the end, I was incensed by your lame excuses and half truths. Sure the press sensationalised and got in wrong (nothing fresh there). However the bodywork corrosion protection on these cars (all Lancia's) was atrocious. I have PERSONALLY failed Beta coupes for subframe corrosion on their 1st MOT, that's at 3 years of age in the UK. I also rebuilt a 9 year old Fulvia coupe (probably the best car I've ever owned) that was absolutely rotten. It did not even have any paint on parts of the car that could not be reached with a spray gun 😲 I love Lancias but all the stories ARE TRUE and their reputation justly deserved ;-)
Back in the late 70s I worked for a company supplying giant timing displays for horse shows etc and for a while Lancia sponsored them, as well as plastering them with Lancia branding they gave us some Berlinas for towing the units about, they were pretty ugly but drove beautifully and were very luxurious for the day. I really enjoyed driving them around for the couple of years we had them. My boss managed to get an HPE out of them too, that was fun to drive.
My first car was a 6 year old renault 16... It lasted 12 months before dissolving. Undaunted, my second car was a beautiful dark blue Trevi with space age interior... Sold it to an Alfa owning friend a couple of years later... No rust issues... Just smiles!
The italian car's...made between an espresso a cigarette and talking about the beautiful woman of the Noth Europe at lunch time..in my days..cheers from Canada 🇨🇦..
Well said! I’m a 1970s Fiat man but lots of why you say about the Beta is cross applicable. Very pleased that you, too, are helping to debunk the Russian steel fallacy / bollock rot nonsense; it’s simply not true, as Matteo of Roadster Life has also explained. I’m pleased to have stumbled over your channel and will be adding you to my subs list. Cheers. Uppermiddlepetrolhead.
The masterpiece of the Beta family is the HPE, the car of my uncle: and what a car! The worst is the saloon berlina.
I agree the HPE is the prettiest Beta, I had a Volumex one in gray. It now lives in Singapore 🇸🇬. I’m currently working on a Berlina that was rescued from a breakers yard, last on the road in 1992 then was removed from a garage when the owner died. Body is very solid due to having rust protection, hopefully it will be on the road next year.
The steel thing was an issue on the continent.
Have you not noticed a black-hole appearing in the supply market for mid-eighties Ford's?
Buy BL I Say!
My dad a Lancia Beta in the eighties. The car did not have any major issues. I learned to drive stick on my dad's Lancia. The exhaust sound was very unique and the car was very comfortable. After few minor issues, and the fact we lived in SE Asia where Lancia parts were hard to come by, my dad ended up trading the Lancia for a mint Peugeot 504, which was another beautiful car.
Many moons ago. (Mid 1980s). My brothers partner had a Beta saloon. Such a lovely comfortable car to ride in. Here in New Zealand we were aware of the supposed major rust problems. This particular Beta failed to live up to the hype. Frankly it did not produce rust any faster than any other Italian car of the age.
Nissan Navara pick ups (of which there are 1000's) suffer huge chassis rot problems. Spanish built ones had no rust protection on their woefully thin chassis which results in catastrophic failiure in only a few years. Nissan have done their best to cover this up and have been secretly buying back vehicles on a massive scale. i have personal eperience when my best friend bought a rotten one (he paid £9000 for it) it's chassis was rotten. After researching he took it to Nissan who said it was 'fine' and gave him the short shift. At the next MOT it was given a red ticket so he took pictures and sent the details to Nissan, they offered him £9000 for it on condition he sign a non disclosure agreement and had it picked up. I believe there is a picture of a field near a docks (Southampton?) full of used Navaras being shipped to Africa. So, these problems still exist but are handled in a different and better way than Lancia (probably due to Lancias experience) and if you're in the market for a Navara make sure it isn't Spanish built and do your research first...and check the chassis and cross members at the rear.
Lolol! I had a '75 Beta coupe when I was living in Phoenix in the mid-'80s. Nice to drive, very comfy interior, a little heavy for its power. Oh, and rust. Lots and lots of rust. Haven't seen one on the road in decades.
Do you mean to tell me that the clowns at Top Gear exaggerated the rust issues with fabricated stories? I'm shocked.
Hard to imagine, right? 😉
In fairness I don’t think they’re by any means the worst, and I believe Clarkson has said some nice (and well researched) things about Lancia too.
My father had a Lancia Beta berlina 1.3 back in 1979 here in Italy. I was only 9 years old but i remember the car was always breaking down and extremely unreliable , no rust but when he tried starting it up there was a sort of a 50/50% chance it would 😏
I always assumed that the R16-like four door model was a hatchback. It should have been. I saw one in a dealer showroom in San Francisco and never one on the road ever.
US cars in winter road salt areas would start to get body rust after three or four years all the time before galvanized bodies and before that dips in various coatings. Not just in the 70's but forever. I think Audi started galvanizing bodies, the other Germans and then American companies and lastly Japanese. Japanese cars were very reliable but until they caught up on rustproof bodies a few years later than the rest were rust prone.
The Beta 4 door was a competitor to the 3 Series in its heyday. Fiat / Lancia should never have deserted the UK. The market is crying out for prestige marques provided build quality is assured. A lesson for Jaguar here.
great stuff. those of us with a modicum of intelligence (and old enough to remember) never took any of that tripe seriously, certainly not any of the inane bollocks spewed forth by the 'journalists' on top gear. not counting william woollard. obviously.
anything 70s and 80s in a goofy suit is better than any modern car.
1. i can fix them with a hammer, screw driver, monkey wrench and a belt.
2.they look like the car equivalent of 2 chilren in an adult suit.
3. simple mods and some head work can usually double or sometimes triple the torque and make them a blast to drive.
4. they are more reliable by far with proper care which means check all fluids every fueling, and top off as needed, get inspections every year at the hottest time of year.
all my oldies were sold for way more than i paid, and cost me very little to own and drive.
all my more modern stuff was extremely expensive and only lasted a few months before very expensive repairs.
The Lancia Beta Coupe was one of the most refined vehicles you could buy in the late 70's. Was worlds apart from anything else in the same class.
And that says 'what' about the 70's cars?
@@poppycock6572 that Lancia were among the best
..well,..that the Beta was more refined than most other 70's cars.
These beta cars are extremely unreliable with all sorts of problems due to sub standard components.
I guess they don’t properly cure rubber or heat treat steel. Electrical connections always find way to go haywire. Plastic lever break at most critical way.
I still remember manually operated window regulator were made of some tiny soft metal gear with perhaps 10 teeth that moves steel spring like cable mechanism up and down. These gear teeth tend to round off easily and won’t engage to move window at all. Even though the parts are extremely expensive they were impossible to find even in its days!!!
I had one in Southern California so rust or Russian steel crap wasn’t an issue.
Saw a reply mentioning window regulators. I had similar problem. Rebuilt a couple of damaged units to make one good regulator. Windows required very "hard winding" due to different curvitures of door and window frames. Mounted my new rebuilt regulator with drilled out holes in the metal window frame using 10-32 screws and "nylok " nuts allowing a small amount of "slop". Window winding then required much less effort and still sealed properly. Never had a problem after that. Performed same modification on both coupes I owned.
Wow that was beautiful how you teased that there wasn't going to be a 037 Stradale there
I wanted you to be as amazed as I was at seeing it! Such a rare treat 😊
Lancia was let down in Britain by poor sales management. Who else would win the World Rally Championship multiple times and fail to capitalise on the achievement? I tried to buy a new Lancia Prisma in the late 1980s; the local dealer had no sales literature on the model, and as soon as they realised I wasn't interested in buying a Delta Integrale, just lost interest. I tried a dealer further away who were most helpful, until they learned of my address; then they just referred me to the other dealer, saying they were unable to 'steal' another dealer's customers!
Η αγαπημένη μου είναι η Montecarlo.
My dad loved his Lancia, the rust was no worse than any other car of the period. We lived near the sea which was probably a factor. The biggest issue was the gearbox it failed on the way back from the Alps, it was all replaced free of charge. He ran that car until it was no longer economical to keep on the road. It was comfortable and and fast. Lancia always made good cars.
Despite your enthusiasm for Lancia' s their rustability ensures their are no Lancia' dealers in the UK.
Lancia's rally successes were with spaceframed and fibreglass specials adorned with the Lancia' badge.
what did you expect from an unfinished beta version? Get Lancia Final v1.0 :D
There was a kid at school who was very proud of his dad's Beta, we used to rib him about it. I'm an engineer for a Fiat subsidiary, I sort of understand what happened here, aquisti found a matey company who made the parts and the engineer lost the argument of what they wanted to do to reduce costs, these meetings can be lengthy and very penetrative, or the parts were made without sufficient control, or both, that was the culture then and is thankfully a lot different now, I prefer Alfa's myself.
I'm going to pick up a lancia beta 1800 soon thanks for all the informa
Excellent! Hope it all goes well 👍
I've had 17 Lancia in my life all fantastic cars people have no idea about this great marque. Along with alfa romeo you get ooo reliability from people who have never been near let alone drove these amazing cars
BMWs still rust into the late 1990s, just ask my E39 and my bank balance.
I was a apprentice at the company in the early 80s that imported Lancia cars into the UK and also that collected all the buy backs, not just simple recall these cars were all scraped, at a huge cost to the Company, our company started to rust proof all new Lancia cars but there name was finished.I saw all the cars with there subframes hanging out, its not a myth.
The coupe is abeauty, even in comparison to current cardesigns. The brother of my fathers brothers wife had one when they were inroduced. My father and and my uncle drove ford taunusses. The beta was from another planet. What greatand sporty car
unloved car, pple said it was not a proper lancia as the fulvia was. back in the '90s i saw many in the junkyards with low km, lancia owners of the time were usually elderly. still better than the prisma
My aunt had a Berlina back in the day.
I remember driving through Texas in August.
The air conditioning was pathetic and the engine was spinning at over 4,000 RPM trying to keep up with traffic.
It had an endless stream of mechanical and electrical problems and rust showed up within 18 months of her buying it.
She eventually moved to Wisconsin and his car did not like cold weather at all often becoming difficult if not impossible to start.
The rust accelerated exponentially due to Wisconsin's salted winter roads.
But if you ask her today she'll look back through rose colored glasses and remember it fondly.
Worst even, Betas in other markets did not have this fame of being death traps and rusting rapidly but as English is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world, now everyone says they rusted like mad.
My friend has a lancia zagato , not rusted. But lost the key! Great car drives like a Toyota Celica.
These were very sought after in 70/80s my neighbour had an HPE ❤
People can say what they want. Truth is, those cars are extremely beautiful. The only problem with them is they're nearly all gone.
what I remember more of Lancia beta berlina is the roomy and confortable internal space. no fiat and no alfa was so good for long travels. to achieve such a level of comfort you should buy an expensive higher class foreign car. I think English people imagine Italy much more sunny than the reality. most of them don't go to holydays in foggy cold northern places as Milan or Turin. in the seventies rust was a problem of all cars in all countries, not a special problem of Italian ones but it was easy to make the equation: sunny italy=less care of rust.
Good point. I’ve worked in Milan and seen all sorts of weather, including snow.
And I own two Vauxhalls, a Rover and a Renault from the 1970s: it definitely wasn’t just the Italian makers that could have done better with rustproofing 😬
I had a beta salon in 83 it was about 5 years old when I got it a 2000
& I remember in 92 I was working on a house in a village in Oxfordshire & the owner opened the garage door & lo & behold a lancia strattos in white even the it was a rare car
A sad part of being a car enthusiast is people who don't actually know anything about cars but want to be perceived as enthusiast spout the same old drivel they heard off hand about things without having done any real research into the issue itself. Even mechanics with decades of experience fall into the same trap.
Hi Thanks for the informative vid .I bought a second hand beta in the late seventies loved it ,it was a yellow four door as in your vid ,it had Weber carbs fitted and really went well,I never had any problem with the engine panel but where previous owner had parked it on a grass centred driveway during his ownership the inner sills and floor pan was in a poor state and I had to do a lot of welding
I remember how popular they were in the 70s and a particular family friend had several of them. The 4 door failed its MOT when only a few years old and he swapped it for an HPE that was in much better shape and he had a Targa topped one too I seem to remember.. But that also succumbed to rust after a few short years. But so did so many cars in those days. I remember going to the local scrap yard for parts for my 1958 Morris Minor in the late 70s and realising that there were loads of 10 year old Vauxhalls, Fords, Fiats and others all in dreadful states of rust while my Morris was rust-free and twice their age. But we lived only 20 mins from the coast and, in those days, people would regularly drive onto beaches - that didn't help. Apart from the real and imagined rust, the Beta had a great reputation as a real driver's car.
I had a friend who had one of these. He had the classic voltage regulator failure. The instrument and dash lights would get brighter and brighter until there was a strong smell of burning !
The reporter actually said it was a public relations exercise to cover up the rust problem and not a public relations campaign as stated so yes it can be both! Lancias don’t have a rust problem but if you are restoring the metalwork simply use Weetabix and spray it silver. I find this replicates the original metal work perfectly.
I had two Beta Berlin’s 1600cc; great cars to drive and both Zeibarted too.
I had some experience driving a then 8 year old 1976 Lancia B 2000 saloon, and for a mid-seventies car it drove extremely well. And it was practically rust-free. Nordic spec Lancias had good rust protection, if only you took care to renew it every 2-3 years.
A malicious media campaign in Britain? Somehow sounds familiar.
Well said... I have been an Italian car lover for many years and owned quite a few from Fiat & Alfa, mainly Alfasud`s, i worked as a car body repairer at an Austin/Rover dealership from the mid 1970`s... back then all cars rusted badly! but today many people see their favorite brands, especially old Ford`s through rose tinted glasses..
I owned two lancia beta cars. I liked them but, the bodies did rust away very badly.
Agreed that the car was essentially a scapegoat for the whole industry, though rolling the alfa sud probably didn't help. However a friend of mine drove an old fiat into his garage once (that was heavily biodegraded) and the engine broke it's mounts. It was a very long time ago, but I saw it 😆
My father had beta 1.8 and HPE 20ie silver Excellent cars also Lancia Thema 20ie Turbo Delta 1.5 and Prisma. I love the Hpe 20ie my father gave it to me when i was 21 GOOD VIDEO
I bet a similar year ford wasn't as inspiring as this. Fiat and Ford had so many great moments, as always I felt more passion for the Alfa. Thanks for reminding us how quirky is not a bad thing!
Very interesting. As usual, Brits know better than italians about italian things..
We had a two litre Beta sedan, very comfortable and spacious but what struck me was the dynamics, it was just fun to drive and so stable, it went where you pointed it and that was it.
Superbly written, sounded like the people who wrote 'Blackadder' had written it (not the series 1 writers, they should still be in prison).
Brilliant video, made me laugh about 8 times so thanks.
That grey coupe at the end was lovely.
Cor, thanks Danny! Glad you enjoyed it 😁
Series 1 written by Rowan Atkinson and Richard Curtis, 2 to 4 by Ben Elton and Richard Curtis . If Atkinson and Curtis were still in prison, would series 2 to 4 still be so good?
0:30 the word "underrated" has become meaningless on youtube
Nice to see that gathering of the almost-forgotten (in the States) Lancia Beta series! As a young lad of 17 (living in Australia at the time), the Monte Carlo/Scorpion was my favorite of the new cars of the time (ca. 1975); the Alfa Alfetta GT hatch and the Datsun 260-Z being others I fancied...Nice review, and looking forward to the drive test! How's the Aerodeck going?
Glad you enjoyed it! I’m planning to do some more metalwork on the Aerodeck this weekend - the day job has been getting in the way quite badly for the last few months but is quiet again now.
Agree with your honest assessment. Excellent cars (when working). I bought an HPE ie in 1989. It was an automatic (Made by AP and loosely based on the Austin Maxi auto box- yes really!) Needless to say it packed up so i converted it to manual in 1993. Sold in 1998 - XCW500Y, where are you now?
Almost bought one in 1989, bought an A112 Abarth instead.
Thanks for the great video. Finally an honest review of a very good car. To prove your point, the much fabled rust issue of the Beta is purely a UK one. Elsewhere the car.... rusted just like any other car in the market in the 1970s! It was entirely a PR disaster thanks to the proverbially venomous UK press, with likely a thumb up or two from the likes of BL or the Dagenham folks. I remember seeing Cortinas, Humters, Maxis and Toledos held together with 'Sunday morning' spray paint and go-fast decal stripes!!!!! 😂😂😂
i remember that as well the paint was matt black .......
They were crushing all Betas, not just Berlinas!
My father bought a Beta Berlina 2000 new back in 1979 when I was 5, he had Tuff Kote Dinol rust treatment applied from new and kept it till 1983 when it had covered just shy of 50k miles. He had no major issues with the car, there were no visible signs of rust when he sold it. Yes it was garaged and looked after very well but my father has only fond memories of the car. He sold it privately to a local chap and we saw it regularly in use till the late 1980s, I can still remember the reg number, RCK 182T, bought from Grosvenor Motors in Preston. Happy Days
Some lovely cars on there. I owned a 1980 HPE back in the 1980s - my first car- and a friend owned multiple Capris. I couldn't believe how badly his car handled (especially in the wet) compared to mine when I finally got to drive it. I thought all such sporty models handled decently. Nope....
Indeed! And what a great first car 😊
The 'saloon only' rust story is absolute nonsense. I was a regular customer at the scrapyard that processed Betas (Hallett Metals in Crewkerne) and all Beta variants were being crushed. I don't think Monte Carlos were being scrapped but there were loads of Coupes, HPE's and Spyders there all stacked up. In 1982, some were only three or four years old being Series 2 cars. I remember a lovely
looking red Coupe being reversed off the lorry and being taken for its last drive up into the yard.
Yes, they panicked. But as I said in the video, the actual subframe issue was only on the Series 1 Berlinas.
As I said, there were Coupe, HPE and Spyder models in the scrapyard as well plus Series 2 saloons. The subframe and floor were the same on all models. I was there and saw it - in summer 1982 I had a weekend job there. In the video you can see a Spyder shell being swung by a crane. That was at the far end of the yard where they were stacked up. The public were not allowed near them and no parts were allowed to be sold from them. Radios could be removed by employees but once the wheels and engine were removed, the cars were flattened (they didn’t have an actual crusher) and sent off to the steelworks - in South Wales iirc.
Forgot: it wasnt a box section on the floor but two rounded looking sections spot welded to the area where the floor met the vertical bulkhead. They would rot out there until the mounts broke free and the rot would extend in all directions. It was repairable but any holes and that was it, curtains. I guy I worked with in the 90’s worked as a mechanic at Portman Garages and saw quite a few. Tony Tapping iirc.
The Lancia Beta drives like a surprisingly modern car because, well, it is -- the very first model ever mass-produced to the overall engineering formula that ultimately won out in the auto industry worldwide. FWD with a transverse DOHC engine, 5-speed transaxle with its own oil supply (not shared with the engine sump), 4-wheel disc power brakes, rack and pinion steering (even ZF power-assisted in some specs), fully-independent MacPherson strut-based suspension with a multilink rear -- few cars had _any_ of that, let alone _all_ of that, when the Beta debuted in 1972, nor many more by the time it finally retired a dozen years later.
Very true. I cover much of that in my second video, which focuses on driving the Beta Coupé.
My first car was a 1977 Beta berlina 2000, had it from 1980 - 1981. It was grate fun, very good handling, and in period quite quick. Unfortunately I run off the road and ended on the roof with it. My fault, not the car. I always felt it was one of the best cars I had :)
Gorgous cars had hpe really reliable used it for years gorgous orange trim