Cars that saved or shamed... (Autocar)

[Andy D]

Richard Bremner's weekly "The cars that saved or shamed the company" feature in Autocar focuses on the Beta this week.  Maybe the main surprise should be that it has taken him so long to look at it (this is his 32nd article so there were 31 cars deemed worthy of attention ahead of it!).

It features a photo of UYN 194S (a Berlina) which according to the DVLA survived for 10 years - siginificantly longer than the average Beta according to his article...

No mention of it on their website - it's only in the actual magazine.

Andy

[fensaddler]

Andy - congrats on your first post!

Read this myself.  Not a bad review of why the Beta was so bad for Lancia's reputation in the UK, but it blames the rust (any worse than many other cars of its time??) rather than the marketing and PR disaster that was made of it by Lancia UK at the time.  Lancia's reputation recovered elsewhere, but not here.  Ms Rantzen has a lot to answer for, but then more recent events have proved that her only real interest is self-publicity, so the Beta, and Lancia in the UK, was merely another of her victims on her quest for glory.

[Andy D]

Thanks Chris.

You may have seen this before but here's an old clip from News at Ten about the Beta recall - more bad PR...

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