Earlier this week I wrote about the London Concours, which included a category called “Lancia Legends”, featuring just some of the greatest cars made by Lancia and therefore, made by anyone. Unfortunately, another Lancia Legend is their demise as a manufacturer of beautiful, sporting and desirable cars and their transition to a producer of disintegrating rust-buckets.
The 1970’s began a period of mixed fortunes for the Italian company, which had been taken over by FIAT in October 1969. On the one hand, they were still making cars that enhanced their “legend” status – the Delta Integrale, the Fulvia, the Gamma and the incredible Stratos. They enjoyed tremendous success in motorsport, rallying in particular, culminating in the mighty world championship-winning 037.
You can’t have too many photos of a Stratos, especially when it’s the real thing.
On the other, in 1972 they launched the car that eventually undid their reputation to the point where it never really recovered; that car of course was the Beta, Lancia’s first new model under FIAT ownership.
The base car was the hatchback-styled – but with a conventional boot – Beta Berlina, which came with a range of 4-cylinder FIAT twincam engines (something which undermined the brand, for the purists, despite the fact that Lancia versions of these engines were so altered that they were not interchangeable with FIAT models) ranging from 1300cc carburettor up to (eventually) 2-litres of fuel injected power. 5-speed gearboxes were standard, a rarity then, and all models came with fully independent suspension and disc brakes all round.
The Beta formed the basis of an entire range of cars for Lancia – as well as the fastback Berlina, a very smart coupé, was made available from 1973, and 1975 saw no fewer than three additions to the range – a stylish Spyder from Zagato, a dramatic mid-engined sportscar in the form of the very shapely Montecarlo and one of the most elegant shooting brakes available, the HPE, or High Performance Estate. Finally, late on in the life of the Beta, a traditional notchback saloon, the Trevi, was introduced.
The cars all looked good, drove well, and were positively received by the motoring press, who praised the performance, roadholding and handling, so what could go wrong? There were signs of trouble when the Montecarlo ceased production for two years from 1978 while Lancia addressed problems with its brakes. Still, the Montecarlo was a relatively minor part of the range, at least in volume terms, with only 7,798 examples built.
More serious issues affecting the bulk of the range manifested themselves in form of the orange demon, rust. By the late 1970’s, major problems were being reported regarding corrosion affecting the box section to which the rear of the subframe was mounted, resulting in looseness (though not the dramatic dropping out of subframes that some reported) that would result in MOT failure.
There were rumours that the root cause was low-quality Russian steel that FIAT had accepted in exchange for building the Lada factory there, but these were unfounded. The more prosaic reality was that Lancia’s rust-proofing techniques were inadequate, reinforced by frequent strikes that did nothing to help matters.
As these rust problems became more and widespread – and across the entire Beta range, not just the saloons – Lancia initiated a recall and exchange programme that resulted in thousands of cars being crushed, many of them not even six years old. This became a PR disaster for the company, despite their introducing improved rust-proofing to the extent of even offering a six year anti-corrosion guarantee from 1979 onwards, a first in the UK. In the event, this was all to no avail, and the Beta is now remembered as the car that caused the eventual downfall of Lancia as a premium brand.
Things didn’t quite work out like this…
With such a troubled background, it’s easy to forget that for a time, the Beta was a significant sales success for Lancia. In total, 431,945 examples were produced between 1972 and 1984, 194,914 of them Berlinas (production of which ended in 1981) and an impressive 71,258 were HPE’s.
Nevertheless, the car’s troubled history in the UK and the scrappage scheme in particular have made Lancia Beta’s of all kinds a rare sight on our roads today. According to howmanyleft.com, there are just 123 Beta’s of all types on the road here, but almost three times as many are SORN’d, including 102 Spyder’s and 72 Montecarlo’s; interestingly, it’s the Pininfarina-designed car that comprises the biggest number of Beta’s on the road, 53 of them.
By contrast, there are just 35 roadworthy Beta saloons (and a single Trevi), of which 15 are Beta 2000’s and it’s one of these that is our Prime Find this week.
It’s a shame that all Lancia’s since the Beta have been burdened with the legacy of the 1970’s – to the point where the marque was withdrawn from the UK market in 2009. A good Beta is a fine car, and I especially like the sportier variants – I could certainly be persuaded to add a Beta Coupé or HPE to my garage (although the first Lancia to find its way in there would have to be a Fulvia).
Our Prime Find Beta Berlina 2000 was built in 1979 – making it possibly one that was given better rustproofing from the start, and according to the private vendor, the car shows no signs of rust and has never been welded, probably as a consequence of it having been garaged for its entire life, 40 years of which have been spent with a single owner.
It’s a 2-litre, the most desirable version, so performs well – it’s 113bhp propelled the car to a top speed of 180km/h and a 0-100km/h time of just over 10 seconds back in the day – and has a relatively low 90,000 miles under its smart original alloys. The vendor has done some recent light recommissioning including a full service since when the car has covered just 500 miles.
Finished in a combination of cream exterior with matching upholstery, this Beta looks to be in alpha condition (sorry…), and the asking price of £7,000 is commensurate with the claims made for it by the vendor. It does look good in the photos we have borrowed from the advert, which you can see here. As always, should you be interested in buying this increasingly rare Italian saloon, we highly recommend an inspection first.
With our Saturday instalment of Prime Find of the Week, we’re offering our services to the classic car community, by passing on our favourite classic car for sale from the week that passed. This top-tip might help a first-time-buyer to own his first classic, or it could even be the perfect motivation for a multiple-classic-car-owner to expand his garage with something different. We’ll let us be inspired by anything from a cheap project to a stunning concours exotic, and hope that you will do the same.
Just remember – Any Classic is Better than No Classic! We obviously invite our readers to help prospective buyers with your views and maybe even experiences of any given model we feature. Further to that, if you stumble across a classic which you feel we ought to feature as Prime Find of the Week, then please send us a link to primefindoftheweek@viaretro.co.uk