THE Beta Rust Story Breaks.

[fay66]

See,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjgHSqdY5nQ

Brian
8227

[sparehead3]

Good find - nice to hear some proper english being spoken too

I wonder if those cars shown are still around today ?

[fay66]

Good find - nice to hear some proper english being spoken too

I wonder if those cars shown are still around today ?

According to DVLC Vehicle enquiry

CYL 6V. No Record held.

AYU 3T Last Tax Liability was 1/7/1988 so it had a 9 year life, the rust obviously wasn't that bad!

Brian
8227

[toby2449]

wow great find, real shame though, Lancia never got over the story, funnily enough i'm becoming a real fan of Beta now! i'm regulary on ebay looking for one, but my wife won't let me buy one!! 

[Neil Lewis]

So the 6 year anti-corrosion warranty was introduced on April 1st

I was a teenager back then so, while I've known about this for some time, what year did this all happen?

Neil

[Zagato]

Very late 70's/early 80's from memory - but they were unbelievable cars in their day. My dads employer had a small fleet of six 2 litre Beta Saloons and a couple of Coupes (1.6's from memory, something to do with price). Every single one of them covered around 100,000 miles in just over 2 years and there was not one day lost with a car off the road due to running gear failure!! Superb engineering ...
As a 19 year old I somehow got him to lend it me to take the girlfriend home!! Awesome performance and handling! It was only after we split up that she let on that I scared the living daylights out of her!! Wasnt the same when it was eplaced with a Ford Cortina (Mk4/5 yuck!!! even though it was a 2 litre Ghia!!)
When they all went back at the end of the contract they were probably worth peanuts ... as I think that the rust story had broken around that time - could be wrong mind!
I reckon it usually takes about 30 to 40 years for a manufacturer to lose its reputation for rust. Rememeber the FD Victor (circa 1950's) by a manufacturer from Luton. I wasnt even born when they were produced but people still talked about a rust problem in the 1990's   
And yet how often do you see a rusty car on the road nowadays? of any make?
Took me back reading this thread I'll tell you!

[Angle Grinder]

A tragic epitaph to this story... I have a friend who has just converted his garage into a workshop for his picture framing business. It was a lovely long tandem garage and I used to winter store my Gamma in it and my Gamma was parked behind his Beta 1.3 Coupe. It was a 1978 car with the classic Chocolate Brown paint and mustard yellow interior.

The car failed an MoT about 6 years ago for rust at the top of the inner wings. Not a big job, but my friend would struggle to get la*d in a brothel so the car languished for years with the promise that "I'll get round to it when I get the money".

So when the decision was made to change the garage into a workshop the Beta had to be moved. I tried to help out with this and spent 2 hours working on the car feeding petrol down the fuel lines and managing to get it to run for 2 minutes at a time, but there just wasn't any fuel making it to the carb. The tank had gone dry and I suspect that the fuel lines were vapour locked.

Unfortunately, I couldn't spare anymore time to work on the car as I was leaving on holiday the next day. I told my "friend" to contact BetaBoyz and offer the car for free to a good home. He did, but only gave them 5 days notice and on day 6 the car went to the scrapyard.

The car is now sitting on top of a pile of other cars in a Scrapyard in Kilmarnock. It had less than 40K miles on the clock and would have been an easy concours project for someone. If anyone wants me to check it out for parts then I can have a look. Please note that I have since ex-communicated the "friend".

[neil-yaj396]

at least it has stirred up enough interest to spark two articles on the forum today. Hopefully someone will rescue it. I had the only 1300 at the AGM and would like some company.

[ColinMarr]

I think the rust problem only affected the early cars, say pre-1977. Actually, I doubt it was as serious a problem as was made out at the time. I reckon all mass produced cars from the mid-1970s were prone to rust and it was naïve of Lancia to own up and expose them to such bad publicity.

I had the pleasure in 1981 of buying an ‘S’ reg (1978) 1600 Saloon in mint condition with only a few thousand miles, for only £1200. And it was fantastic – a practical family saloon with high performance when called for. I enjoyed it for daily use, covering about 12,000 miles a year until I sold it in 1987. It was the nearest thing I will ever get to owning a new Lancia.

Colin

[Peter W]

I bought a 1600 Berlina new in May 1979 & kept it for 4 years. It was dripping parafin wax from every box member when I drove it out of the showroom, I had no rust problems despite it not being garaged & doing 30K miles each year.  I replaced it with a new HPE 2000ie also not garaged, replaced after 4 years with 130K miles on the clock & no rust.  The replacement was my VX Coupe which was 2 years old when I got it but with just 2200 miles on the clock.  5 years later with 150K on the clock it ceased to be my daily driver and was finally garaged.  Since then it has had one respray & a couple of small welding jobs.  As anyone who knows the car will agree, it is in pretty good order.  These cars fared much better rustwise than the BMC/British Leyland cars I had owned previously.

Peter

[Parisien]

I was a mere toddler.......ok.......a big toddler when this happened and the impact or detail passed me by.

The UK was the biggest market after Italy for the Beta or whole range? Unbelieveable really that they then eventually pulled out never to effectively return. The engine merely became misligned and none actually fell out according to The Mirror, in reality!

The utube piece looks so old.................almost pre-historic......


P

[Derek Moore]

i believe Jack Romano has stated in an edition of Viva Lancia a while back that in 1978, Lancia outsold BMW in the UK! It beggars belief what irreversible damage the recall seems to have done. People I speak to about Lancia know nothing about them except " oh yes, they rust away don't they". Tragic!!

[Parisien]

i believe Jack Romano has stated in an edition of Viva Lancia a while back that in 1978, Lancia outsold BMW in the UK! It beggars belief what irreversible damage the recall seems to have done. People I speak to about Lancia know nothing about them except " oh yes, they rust away don't they". Tragic!!

Even then, the Lancia range whilst half decent was being down graded by FIAT......think about what it could have been if properly supported and given a decent strategy........oh well......


P

[chriswgawne]

I was lucky enough to have an early new 1600 Beta Coupe in metallic grey with green velour trim. Excellent car and v reliable in the 70,000 miles I did in it. This was followed by a red Srs 1 Monte Carlo which was great once I had fitted a brake pressure valve to the front brakes. However after a couple of years the body was a little edgy and so I put it into a friends paintshop for a little bit of work. Full respray + loads of Dinitrol later I got it back. The metal used at that time was very very prone to rusting if moisture got anywhere near it. Sold that and bopught a new Srs 1 Gamma Coupe but thats another story.

[Paul Greenway]

i believe Jack Romano has stated in an edition of Viva Lancia a while back that in 1978, Lancia outsold BMW in the UK! It beggars belief what irreversible damage the recall seems to have done. People I speak to about Lancia know nothing about them except " oh yes, they rust away don't they". Tragic!!

That's quite right 11,800 Lancias v 3,500ish BMW's sold in the UK in '78