Lancia Montecarlo...37 years and counting
Discussion
Hi
Had one from new many years ago. Didn't nearly as test drive over a couple of days gave me cramp in legs until I realised dealer had left can of Coke behind drivers seat. That removed it was much better. Couple of things I remember. Mine was before they sorted out the braking which left me with major frontal damage. Also could not park it with engine facing rain as it wouldn't start. Maternity staff got quite cross when I collected new born and wife. Not in that thing if I remember right. Last sight of it was rusting away after 2 years on the dealers truck as I waited for a Porsche 924. Yes i know that wasn't a proper Porsche but it got me on to a 944 then a 911
Rob
Had one from new many years ago. Didn't nearly as test drive over a couple of days gave me cramp in legs until I realised dealer had left can of Coke behind drivers seat. That removed it was much better. Couple of things I remember. Mine was before they sorted out the braking which left me with major frontal damage. Also could not park it with engine facing rain as it wouldn't start. Maternity staff got quite cross when I collected new born and wife. Not in that thing if I remember right. Last sight of it was rusting away after 2 years on the dealers truck as I waited for a Porsche 924. Yes i know that wasn't a proper Porsche but it got me on to a 944 then a 911
Rob
MickyveloceClassic said:
Breadvan72 said:
La Nonna in the doorway is enjoying La Bella Signorina's exchange of colourful language with Il Postino. It reminds her of her days working at Salon Go Go back in the late 40s. She insists that Gianni Agnelli and Aurelio Lampredi once hired her and her friend Cata for a double or quits sesh, but her family discount this as just another of Nonna's stories.
The junior Carabinieri is admonishing the English driver for going the wrong way down the Senso Unico (one way street), and probably all the more aggrieved at the comparison between the Lancia and his own means of transport. And maybe a hint of jealousy over the tanned, fragrant passenger.
I suspect this.
And he frankly can’t believe the audacity of such a manoeuvre.
RobRS76 said:
Hi
Had one from new many years ago. Didn't nearly as test drive over a couple of days gave me cramp in legs until I realised dealer had left can of Coke behind drivers seat. That removed it was much better. Couple of things I remember. Mine was before they sorted out the braking which left me with major frontal damage. Also could not park it with engine facing rain as it wouldn't start. Maternity staff got quite cross when I collected new born and wife. Not in that thing if I remember right. Last sight of it was rusting away after 2 years on the dealers truck as I waited for a Porsche 924. Yes i know that wasn't a proper Porsche but it got me on to a 944 then a 911
Rob
I followed a similar path but kept the Montecarlo Had one from new many years ago. Didn't nearly as test drive over a couple of days gave me cramp in legs until I realised dealer had left can of Coke behind drivers seat. That removed it was much better. Couple of things I remember. Mine was before they sorted out the braking which left me with major frontal damage. Also could not park it with engine facing rain as it wouldn't start. Maternity staff got quite cross when I collected new born and wife. Not in that thing if I remember right. Last sight of it was rusting away after 2 years on the dealers truck as I waited for a Porsche 924. Yes i know that wasn't a proper Porsche but it got me on to a 944 then a 911
Rob
Breadvan72 said:
Il Postino appears to be a cousin of Viz Comic's Postie.
Viz trivia alert : Simon Donald, the geezer who started Viz is a real petrolhead, with his first royalty cheque he treated himself to a Mk1 Cooper S, followed soon after with an early 1275GT and a Wood & Pickett Mk3 Cooper S.
CallThatMusic said:
Weather Friday - Sunday this weekend looks pretty good
Cheers, I'm up in Aberdeenshire unfortunately.Usget said:
Can you do a thread on it?? I don't think I've ever seen one on the road! (Seen a couple of SZs but no RZs)
I'll have a go. 
Getting vaguely back on topic, I sometimes forget how pretty the Beta is.
I bought a Monte Carlo Spyder new from HR Owen in London. A856RYT for £9,995
Was a gold colour as was their only one on stock with light cloth seats.
Everyone asked why I didn't get red or black 😂
Anyway it was fraught with problems and tried rejecting it.
In the end the accelerator stuck at 70 mph and the car nearly killed me.
Sold it for £7,500 within a year.
Was a gold colour as was their only one on stock with light cloth seats.
Everyone asked why I didn't get red or black 😂
Anyway it was fraught with problems and tried rejecting it.
In the end the accelerator stuck at 70 mph and the car nearly killed me.
Sold it for £7,500 within a year.
Breadvan72 said:
P5BNij said:
BV, AutoItalia magazine no.284 (October 2019) has a nice five page spread on a Beta Coupe almost identical to yours, it's a darker shade of brown but has the same coloured seats.
MY BETA IS NOT BROWN. IT IS BRONZE. NOW I HAVE TO KILL YOU.But also, Grazie tanto!
A bit annoyed now, I've been searching my hard drive for some photos I took at the NEC a few years ago of a pale blue Montecarlo with orange seats, it was a stunner, but can I find the pics, can I 'eck!
1970s British Rail sunglasses? As brown as the ceilings in the smoking carriages (ie all of the carriages)?
As brown as the lettuce in the Salade du Chef avec Rissoles au Sheffield in the BR dining car?
Come to think of it, those sunnies would even make my dad's Austin Princess* look brown.
* It was brown.
As brown as the lettuce in the Salade du Chef avec Rissoles au Sheffield in the BR dining car?
Come to think of it, those sunnies would even make my dad's Austin Princess* look brown.
* It was brown.
PS: I loved BR, and after decades of serious under investment by Government, BR was just at long last getting its shiz together when the idiots privatised it. The Great Railway Disaster. I once had quite a big professional role in one of the periodic re-nationalisations of the East Coast Line, after yet another franchise holder that had promised the Moon on a stick for 10p stuffed it up (whilst various politicians and directors of companies counted their winnings, held offshore). Are we due another re-nationalisation yet, or is it time to award yet another fat contract to yet another bunch of incompetent crooks?
Was it that nice Mr Savile that said let the train take the strain? On second thoughts, I think I may go by car. Preferably an Italian car with a Lampredi in it.
At least in Italy they let all the kiddy fiddling be done professionally, by the clergy, and not by keen amateurs.
Was it that nice Mr Savile that said let the train take the strain? On second thoughts, I think I may go by car. Preferably an Italian car with a Lampredi in it.
At least in Italy they let all the kiddy fiddling be done professionally, by the clergy, and not by keen amateurs.
Edited by anonymous-user on Friday 31st July 17:44
Have to disagree on some of that - privatisation has brought massive investment in some areas, some of which we've been involved in on our 'patch', all of it was desperately needed, most of which had been put off since the early '60 due to successive Parliament types kicking the can down the road. It takes decades to get it all done, but eventually it will all be done (long after I retire to the mess room in the sky). The WCML should have been electrified for the full 400 miles by 1966 but it kept being put back, and similarly the ECML was supposed to have been done by 1974 / 75 but wasn't. Lots of mistakes were made in the pre-Beeching Modernisation Plan with several u-turns, political interference and different plans overlapping where they shouldn't have done. Something many folk probably aren't aware of is that the Midland line south of Leicester was due to be closed in '66 (including the demolition of St.Pancras) with traffic to be diverted across to Rugby and down into Euston, if that had actually taken place the WCML would have reached full capacity by c1970 and would have needed the extra investment it eventually received over the last decade or so. In Labour's 1964 election campaign they promised to keep the Great Central route open but went back on it within two years of reaching office by severing it completely south of Rugby, then closing the final stretch to Leicester and Nottingham in '69. If they'd kept their promise we wouldn't need HS2 now (forget the high speed PR bit that was pushed from the start of the project, it's all about releasing capacity to enable similar speed services to run much more fluidly on the crowded WCML, which I see everyday). From an operational point of view, the railway we have now is far more flexible than it has ever been, it probably doesn't look that way to the paying punters on the 08.23 to Walmington-on-Sea, but it's not as bad as some would like to make out. A lot of the current investment is going into putting right past mistakes, more precisely putting the capacity back in where it was too hastily removed in the 1970 - 1990 period. BR was good in parts, but a lot of it was bad and very wasteful (I started in '82, right in the middle of the flexible rostering strike!).
If the railway is ever renationalised, the only real change will be the company name along the top of my payslip....!
Quick, somebody post an old Lancia pic....!
If the railway is ever renationalised, the only real change will be the company name along the top of my payslip....!
Quick, somebody post an old Lancia pic....!
Edited by P5BNij on Friday 31st July 20:04
I think that we may be agreeing, and not just about Italoheaps. BR was stuffed up by bad decisions and chronic lack of funding, but I buy the Christian Wolmar argument that, just before privatisation, BR was finally getting on the, er, right track. Railways are arguably so huge, expensive, and important that leaving them to joint stock Capitalism, with the constraints to which that economic form is necessarily subject by its very nature, doesn't work. The nineteenth century railway boom involved huge amounts of fraud, bubbles, and inefficiency, as well as much fabulousness. Anyway, the rail companies were then run into the ground by WW2, but after the nationalisation the whole thing was run on a budget of 25p for the next several decades. It is a wonder that any trains ran at all, but they did. As for Beeching, I refer you to the only serious and sad song that Flanders and Swann ever wrote and performed, namely "The Slow Train".
OP, please have your thread back, soz! Some new (old) Italian car related idiocy may be happening this weekend. All secret for now, but, .... Monday may bring what it may bring.
OP, please have your thread back, soz! Some new (old) Italian car related idiocy may be happening this weekend. All secret for now, but, .... Monday may bring what it may bring.
Edited by anonymous-user on Friday 31st July 22:44
jamies30 said:
CallThatMusic said:
Weather Friday - Sunday this weekend looks pretty good
Cheers, I'm up in Aberdeenshire unfortunately.Usget said:
Can you do a thread on it?? I don't think I've ever seen one on the road! (Seen a couple of SZs but no RZs)
I'll have a go. Getting vaguely back on topic, I sometimes forget how pretty the Beta is.
Think this is it awaiting some attention in Loanhead but I could be wrong about that.
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