SHITE ICON for sale - lancia beta berlina

[Mr_Bo11ox]

This car is seemingly SOLD over the phone to a geezer with a Regata! Deposit paid and everything. Resulty.

[wuvvum]

Sounds like it's going to a good home then. Unless the "man with the Regata" is someone from Top Gear pretending to be an enthusiast so he can buy cherished Italian vehicles for Clarkson to trash in some hilarious segment about rust or such like. Wanted to go and have a look myself yesterday, but didn't get home till 4am so by the time I got up it would have been dark by the time I got there. May be a good thing though - I don't have garage space for it (unless I sling the Alfasud outside, which I don't want to do) so it would have spent the winter outdoors, which wouldn't have done it any good at all.

[Spottedlaurel]

Wanted to go and have a look myself yesterday, but didn't get home till 4am........

Sorry, my fault

[MrRegieRitmo]

Point him in the direction of this site!

[mk2_craig]

Sounds like it's going to a good home then. Unless the "man with the Regata" is someone from Top Gear pretending to be an enthusiast so he can buy cherished Italian vehicles for Clarkson to trash in some hilarious segment about rust or such like.

Yeah, that would suck if Autoshite/RR became new hunting grounds for solid-ish old tat with the added effect of pissing off a high concentration of folk when flattened by a Chieftain in front of 5 million viewers or something. Incidentally, I've been leafing back through some early copies of TG Mag and there's some very good articles on cheap crap old cars, including that feature where a freelancer drove a £50 Avenger Estate from Land's End to J.O.G and another where five of the staffers were given each £500 to spunk on tat. CX, Uno, 265, Alfa Sprint and Farina Wolseley if I recall correctly.

[r.welfare]

I remember that £500 motors article! Quentin Brylcreem loved the 265 and Uno but IIRC the Sud Sprint was an absolute dog.

[Volksy]

Think i've got that issue knocking about somewhere, front cover was a pic of a Renna 16 doing a barrel roll off a ramp There was a load of articles about bangernomics, including the top gear team - Pre hammond and May doing a banger race.Yeh they were all set tasks and had to find a car suitable for less than £500.First Car - UnoExec Car - CX PallasSports Car - Alfa SprintLoad Lugger - Volvo 265Classic - WolseleyThere was even a competition to win a 'freshly saved from the scrappers' Marina 1300 Coupe. Makes a change them saving one rather than destroying one...

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

I remember thoseBetas well. Most of them ended up in Hallett Metals in Crewkerne where I lived at the time - 1982. I lived in Misterton about 2 miles away and the lorries from Abbey Hill would pick them up from the dealers, creep into Crewkerne in the dead of night and drop them off to be crushed - Saloons, Coupes, HPE's and the odd Monte Carlo as well. Someone told one of the papers (Express?) about this and it all came out how Lancia dealers were buying them back on the sly and getting them crushed.There were about 150 of them at one point, stacked four deep, five high. Nothing could be sold off them although the radios and batteries were taken off. The engines were ripped out by a bloke in a crane and tossed into a big container and the bodies flattened. Some of them were rotten old M reg scrappers but some were only 3-4 years old. One I sat in even smelt like new and was externally mint.They were a rusty heap of shit really, but Alfas were a lot worse.

[MrRegieRitmo]

I remember thoseBetas well. Most of them ended up in Hallett Metals in Crewkerne where I lived at the time - 1982. I lived in Misterton about 2 miles away and the lorries from Abbey Hill would pick them up from the dealers, creep into Crewkerne in the dead of night and drop them off to be crushed - Saloons, Coupes, HPE's and the odd Monte Carlo as well. Someone told one of the papers (Express?) about this and it all came out how Lancia dealers were buying them back on the sly and getting them crushed.There were about 150 of them at one point, stacked four deep, five high. Nothing could be sold off them although the radios and batteries were taken off. The engines were ripped out by a bloke in a crane and tossed into a big container and the bodies flattened. Some of them were rotten old M reg scrappers but some were only 3-4 years old. One I sat in even smelt like new and was externally mint.

Why was this?

[Volksy]

Why was this?

from Wiki-

Unfortunately a combination of poor quality steel (allegedly Russian steel supplied to Fiat in return for building the Lada factory[5], a claim that has never been proven, but is still widely circulated; it is far more likely that the problems with the metal itself had more to do with the prolonged strikes that plagued Italy at that time than with the metal's origin), poor rust prevention techniques (typical of almost all automobile manufacturers in the 1970s), and inadequate water drainage channels led to the Beta gaining a reputation for being rust-prone, particularly the 1st Series vehicles (built from 1972–75). The corrosion problems could be structural; for instance where the subframe carrying the engine and gearbox was bolted to the underside of the car. The box section to which the rear of the subframe was mounted could corrode badly causing the subframe to become loose. Although tales of subframes dropping out of vehicles were simply not true, a vehicle with a loose subframe would fail a technical inspection. In actuality, the problem affected almost exclusively 1st Series saloon models and not the Coupé, HPE, Spider or Montecarlo versions.In the UK (Lancia's largest export market at the time) the company listened to the complaints from its dealers and customers and commenced a campaign to buy back vehicles affected by the subframe problem. Some of these vehicles were 6 years old or older and belonged to 2nd or 3rd owners. Customers were invited to present their cars to a Lancia dealer for an inspection. If their vehicle was affected by the subframe problem, the customer was offered a part exchange deal to buy another Lancia or Fiat car. The cars that failed the inspection were scrapped.Sadly for Lancia, on 9 April 1980 the Daily Mirror and certain TV programmes such as That's Life! got wind of what Lancia was already doing to help its customers and embarked on a campaign to exaggerate the issue and humiliate the manufacturer. There were false claims that the problem persisted in later cars by showing photographs of scrapped 1st Series saloons, referring to them as being newer than five and six years old. Other contemporary manufacturers (British, French, Japanese and German) whose cars also suffered from corrosion were not treated as harshly. This was possibly because Lancia was seen as a luxury car brand at that time and consequently expectations were high[6].Ironically, Lancia had already introduced one year previously a 6-year anti-corrosion warranty - an automotive first in the UK. Whilst later Betas (2nd Series cars) had reinforced subframe mounting points and post-1979 cars were better protected from the elements, these issues damaged the whole marque's sales success on most export markets. However, thanks to its strong driver appeal, the Beta still enjoys a dedicated following today. Surviving examples make an interesting classic car choice for the enthusiast.

[MrRegieRitmo]

How infuriating! ^ ^

 

 

 

You'll be safe with this one...

 

http://www.alpimodel.com/peg/pg1025.html

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

Interesting if slightly innacurate Wiki article - for a start Porsche had a six year body warranty in 1976, a long time before Lancia. There were more Series 2 Betas than Series 1's when I used to visit Hallets in the Summer of 1982. The Series one with it's exposed headlamps was quite distinctive in a neat pile of scrap Series 2's!The model Beta above is a Series 1.In 1985 I was living near Newbury and I spotted a dark brown Series 2 Beta in a field, a 78/79 car. I went to have a nosey and it belonged to a guy who ran a racing school and had two of the limited edition Martini Deltas. I can't remember the guy's name for the life of me but he had a connection to Lancia GB and also owned a Beta Spyder. He had diverted two scrap Betas - this brown Berina and a blue HPE and they sat rotting in his field to use as spares. They had been there for 3-4 years even then.Hallett Metals is still in Crewkerne at the same site, but they haven't been a dismantler for a long time.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

The Fatha_bol beta is defo not a series 1, dunno what series it is like but its a 1979. My green one is a series 1 however.

[mk2_craig]

There was even a competition to win a 'freshly saved from the scrappers' Marina 1300 Coupe. Makes a change them saving one rather than destroying one...

Said competition involved sending in a postcard with your reasons for wanting the Marina, I entered (aged 16) and actually got my card printed in the edition when the winner was announced but sadly the car went to some young lad in Scotland. Early K-plater as well... wonder what became of it?

[MrRegieRitmo]

Craig, what is the car in your avatar I've been trying to work it out but I can't....it looks like a MkI Golf, or Scirocco. But then I think Volvo 340...!?

[seth]

Craig, what is the car in your avatar I've been trying to work it out but I can't....it looks like a MkI Golf, or Scirocco. But then I think Volvo 340...!?

Isn't it the Cannonball Run Subaru?

[Betaphile]

Gah. If it wasn't 20,000km away you'd already have an offer. Looks gorgeous.

 

I suspect that if one was brave enough to use it regularly, a lot of the gremlins would sort themselves out. These things just don't like standing around and rusting up their electrical connectors (usual Italian car story). My HPE has a useful penchant for fixing itself if you leave it to its own devices long enough.

I'd agree with that.My HPE is doing 200+ miles a week in this horrible weather,and ater getting all the annoying problems fixed,including 6 breakdowns in 1 journey, its now 100% reliable...BUT I can never relax driving it,always listening,scanning the gauges,waiting for it to cut out at the lights etc.. I've driven X1/9's for years,and am pretty used to this,but sometimes you just want to get to where you are going...and back again without getting the tools out.

 

6 breakdowns in one journey...that's not bad going, I reckon I'd throw in the towel after three. Although the first few times out in the 3p were a nightmare - I think it broke down four times in five journeys, each time with a new and exciting problem, including a cracked carb (!). It seems to be fine now, insofar as it will get you where you need to go, although there is always that aura of unsurety. I've run the Lannie long enough that I've got to the point of trusting it almost unconditionally (I use it when I can't afford to break down). In my experience Italians of this vintage can be amazingly reliable, far more so than popular myth would have it - it's just that once you get ahead of the problem curve, you have to stay in front of it. They don't cost big money to run but unlike Japanese cars, you can't run them forever on bits of tinfoil and string, you need to fix problems before they develop - they punish neglect unmercifully (such as 6 breakdowns in one trip).

 

I posted before about the Beta-rust story but it seems to have disappeared in the big purge - if you want to know more about it there's a good chapter in this book by Geoff Owen - he used to run a private garage flogging Lannies at the time and his take on it is pretty interesting.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Well this car drove out of my life this morning, I was sad to see such a cool-looking car on which I had spent so many evenings (and expletives), replaced by a feeble-looking wad of £20 notes in my hand. But, driving it up to Crewe was not great fun as it did not agree with the sub-zero temperatures and reponded to them by running like a sack of goat dottle for most of the journey, as it struggled to reach the proper running temp. Truly the most maddening car I have had to get involved in so far, I hope if I ever get my green one going it is a bit more co-operative. The new owner seems super sound so I hope it does not exhaust his patience. Tell you what though, for a 1600 family saloon it was amazingly quick once it had cleared its throat, I reckon it could keep up with a golf GTi OK up to say 100mph.

[Mr Average]

All well that ends well Mr B.

[Betaphile]

Top-notch retro footage here:

 

[Rocket88]

It's strange how you get the "whiskers" about some cars. Some stuff you get in, start it up, and you just know it'll take you to the far reaches of Christ knows where...other stuff you feel wouldn't get as far as the next postcode........

[AXrescuer]

It's strange how you get the "whiskers" about some cars. Some stuff you get in, start it up, and you just know it'll take you to the far reaches of Christ knows where...other stuff you feel wouldn't get as far as the next postcode........

Yeah but what about the satisfaction you get from reaching those far off places in your beaten up old shonker! Beats anything you feel in your average Fordhall Vecdeo!

[Rocket88]

Funnily enough, it's got nothing to do with make of car, price, or even condition, it's just that some vehicles just feel "right" the minute you sit in them ................

[pogweasel]

 

Yeah but what about the satisfaction you get from reaching those far off places in your beaten up old shonker! Beats anything you feel in your average Fordhall Vecdeo![/quote

 

heh, I;ve had that feeling about brand-spanker Ford/Vaux/whatever blandness and sure as anything have ground to a humiliating halt shortly afterwards.

 

Then again I have had truly rubbish, smelly, rusty, downright offensive cars that have had a cheery demeanour and a 'can do' attitude. £100 crocks that you'd be happy to blezz off to cornwall or scotland in without even thinking to check owt.