RE: SOTW: Lancia Beta Coupe 2000ie

[Johnpidge]

Had a Fulvia 1.3s White with blue velour interior lovely but rusty - nice dogleg 5 speed box - sort of Italian Cooper S - people thought it was a hairdressers car but in those days 0 - 60mph in 10 secs was quick - but with V4 engine?? low down it really did corner on rails - sold it for £250 in 1981 ish!!! cry cry spent a small fortune on it - shocks, pistons and rings all sorts of things broke/went wrong/rusted and the carbs (dellorto's or webers I can't remember) went out of sync every 2 - 3000 miles - a few friends had Beta's and even one had a Montecarlo which had crap brakes I remember. I wish I had a Fulvia (I think there was also a 1.6s??) now or maybe I don't - It would be a labour of love!

[mr brightside]

johnnymaestro said:

Lovely Motor. Please don't tempt me. I don't need another. Alot more fun to drive that I expected.

Here is our Beta 2 litre at Spa Last year.



It has a 'bit' of rust but otherwise is great. The engine is being refreshed at the moment for next year, as in it's class it is quite a competitive car.

just wanted to say that your car looks fantastic.

[derin100]

I owned one of these (2.OL non-Volumex) back in about 1985/6 when I was a student doing my first degree! An X-Reg '82 car.

It had been bought new for circa £11K (steep money in those days)...I bought it at 3 years old with under 30K miles on the clock for £1100.

A really beautiful car and great to drive...but I had no luck with it:

I crashed it myself (rear-ended some guy with no indicators turning off the main road in Clapham Junction) the day after I'd just done a high speed training day at Brands Hatch...well, everything seemed so slow after that?

I owned it for a year and after that accident I got rear-ended myself (albeit lightly until the final one!) 7 (yes, seven) times in that car in the space of a year! The final one was 'bad', New Year's Eve 1986 and the guy who did it wasn't insured and hastely disappeared back to Ireland. I only had 3rd party insurance and so I was stuffed!

Ended up giving the car for free to a mate who actually had it repaired and got it 'nice' again. Only for it to burst into flames when he was filling it up at a petrol station and stupidly left the engine running whilst he was filling it!

Talk about a 'jinxed' car!

Nice though.............

[Beirut Taxi]

I'm glad to see so many members like it!


I can't pinpoint it exactly, but somehow the shape and lines of the bodywork are just so right somehow.

[DoddsyR26]

I had one of these in 1989 .. it was rosso red a 1983 model with a noisy gearbox and only 50k miles ... It was immaculate otherwise I had the box fixed and ran it for 6 months until the head gasket went and I promptly sold it. I always lusted after a VX supercharged model but looking back I don't know why .. only had 135 bhp although i'm told it pulled like a 3 litre at the time .. my dad had a 1981 beta coupe for 7 yrs and loved it.
I still think they're a pretty coupe and still have a soft spot for one although i'd never own one again .. Incidently I went on to own a Beta Spyder and a 16v Integrale but Lancia's are out of my system now ownership wise.

[infradig]

I was never brave enough to buy one,but two friends did when we all 18/19 in the early 80's.One was a 1600 coupe that didn't have a spec of rust on it and was pretty quick compared to the Capris and Mantas that cost 5 times as much. The other was a 2000 Berlina that failed it's MOT so spectacularly that it got a 'Red Ticket' meaning it was too unsafe even to drive home! We had to go and pick it up after the tester had left for the day. Although it was nearly 10 years old by then and a lot of BLMC and Ford crap was just as rusty by that age.

[robm3]

I had a beta for a while, it was the 1800cc model but did suffer some bad rust around the lower mounting points for the front suspension. I actually think it was caused by battery acid leaking (from memory, long time ago).

Car was fun to drive though, had a raspy exhaust and motor sounded great around 2800rpms. Negative's were in broke down a lot due to dodgy electrics. Only scored it 6 on the PH meter but kinda wished I did 7 now.

[hermes]

Back in the mists of time I 'upgraded' from a Mk 1 Golf to a Lancia Beta HPE Volumex (I couldn't find a Coupe that I could afford). While it was a very interesting car, mechanically and cosmetically it was complete pants. Not long after I bought it, the cam belt decided to become 2 cam strips and there was carnage below, although credit to the dealer I bought it from he took it back and sorted the knackered engine. However after that it was the usual litany of troubles, including a 3 hour drive through winter weather with intermittent windscreen wipers (for intermittent read hourly). So unusually it was with a light heart that I received the news that my brother was on a drink/drive ban and I was able to acquire a very cheap Renault 5, and at the same time send the Beta to the scrap man.

Curiously though, my hankering for a 2 litre Coupe has never gone away........

[markoc]

Great shed! Saw a monte carlo a while back and couldn't stp thinking about it for weeks.

[tuscman]

Had a Beta Coupe I dont care to mention how long ago, but at the time it was fantastic (as it would be following a Ford Corsair and Vauxhall VX490).

It cost £800.00 and I had great fun for 6 months until I noticed the bonnet was bulging at the edges each time I hit a bump and the front wheels were moving away several inches before the rest of the car.

Turned out the inner wings had rotted out and I was using the bonet for suspension and the front of the floor pan had also rotted and allowed the sub frame to detach (engine and wheels no longer connected to body)

I continued to drive it for some time (as I am insane) until it fell apart and went to the scrap yard for £30.00

I later had a better experience with a mid engine silver Montecarlo spider that I bought for £900.00 and sold 6 months later for double the money. Was a great fun car, but liked to go straight on at bends when it was wet.

The new owner found this out when he wrote it off in a ditch a few weeks later. Wish I still had it though!

[jason61c]

I'm thinking of buying it!!!!

[dinkel]

Think again.

The 60s Lancias were just a tad more better.

http://pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f...

[k-ink]

We had a mint dark blue Beta in our garage for about ten years

[FOURRONE]

Not wishing to be a troll but if these or any other Lancia were any good they would still be trading in this country now,the truth is rust and shocking build quality tarnished the companies reputation and that was what finished it for them here

Edited by FOURRONE on Monday 7th December 09:50

[tr7v8]

FOURRONE said:

Not wishing to be a troll but if these or any other Lancia were any good they would still be trading in this country now,the truth is rust and shocking build quality tarnished the companies reputation and that was what finished it for them here

Edited by FOURRONE on Monday 7th December 09:50

But you are wrong, they didn't rust any more than anything else at the time, but Lancia rather stupidly decided to do the proper thing & buy them back, that got in the red tops with st like "Engines falling out" like someone stupidly echo'd earlier in this thread & that was it.
Everything rusted in those days from every manufacturer.
Mechanically they were fantastic, reliability was variable the same as a lot of other makes at the time.
They sell very well in Europe thank you very much, as the Luxury end of the Fiat empire.

[jason61c]

It was part of a media scam by the British press too as we made totally crap cars and still did until LDV went pop this year.

The media were trying to prop up a failing industry here in the UK that were making cars that were 10 years out of date when they came out.

[Beirut Taxi]

^^ After hearing some of the myths about Lancias rusting, I did wonder if it was actually any worse than some of the cars manufactured in the UK.

I was once told that even the first Japanese cars to arrive in the UK were rustbuckets.

Edited by Beirut Taxi on Monday 7th December 10:56

[AC Motors]

Very nice, had 4 of these in my youth, 2 coupes and 2 Hpe's. The Hpe's were more practical and had very individual styling at the time but the coupes handled better due to shorter wheelbase = less understeer. Never had a Volumex but always wanted one. Head gasket was a common problem and obviously rust on earlier cars. These later ones had been well sorted as far as rust prevention goes but it was too late by then and very few around as no one bought them.

[Jon951]

Yes very nice cars. Had two HPE's in my time, a red 2000ie (which rusted away) and a silver Volumex. The VX was rust free and in lovely condition. I still regret selling her to this day. Always fancied a coupe (but heard that they weren't that spacious for taller drivers) and have been eyeing the car in the advert for a while...

[LuS1fer]

FOURRONE said:

Not wishing to be a troll but if these or any other Lancia were any good they would still be trading in this country now,the truth is rust and shocking build quality tarnished the companies reputation and that was what finished it for them here

Edited by FOURRONE on Monday 7th December 09:50

So, like Alfa, Fiat, Ford, Vauxhall, all Jap companies... Have a look round at the cars that actually have survived from the 70's and you'll see it's very few because they all rusted. The Alfasud I had rusted everywhere, including the day all the radiator fins all rusted and fell out. The fact this one survived seems to suggest it's no worse than any other.