Stop me if you’ve heard this story: protagonist in stable relationship becomes deeply distracted by seductive if unstable newcomer, ignoring strong forebodings and whispered admonitions. Trouble and strife ensue. Long days and nights pass, bills pile up, the scales begin to fall from our subject’s eyes. The new partner is moody, unreliable, fickle. The romance dissolves beneath our protagonist’s feet as unheeded warnings and pleas for discretion begin to haunt her/his waking hours. The former partner, moreover, is long gone . . . there is no turning back. Only pain and sorrow loom on the horizon.
And we’re only talking about the espresso machine. Imagine what happens when the object of one’s affections is on the scale of an actual motorcar. Which is the subject of this sad cautionary tale.
In our previous episode I seemed to have found the ideal car for the snow-capped heights of the greater Rocky Mountains: a Saab 99 with heated front seats, front wheel drive that could navigate the occasional raging blizzard with Swedish aplomb, and a heater that could toast a bagel for breakfast if so required. The rear seat folded down to carry 2×4’s for house projects, and the Triumph Dolomite derived propulsion unit, reverse engineered by sturdy Swedish engineers in down vests and woolen underwear, always started first time when prodded by the key-between-the-seats due to adoption of the revelatory Bosch D-Jetronic injection. No more December mornings with a heartrending R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R soundtrack by dawn’s early light.
I had the perfect car, in other words. Why would I look around for anything else? Why even ask, knowing how human beings are wired? When it comes to potential life mates, automobiles or espresso machines, the grass always seems to be greener on the other side of the fence (although given that my home address is listed in the Pacific Northwest that old adage has acquired new connotations).
The fact of the matter is that during a trip to Salt Lake City with my pal Randal I saw, out of the corner of my watering eye, a bit of Italian machinery on the forecourt of the local Jaguar dealer. Smoking brakes ensued and soon we were, as was our wont, kicking the tires of one Lancia Beta Berlina, sparkling in the mid-day sun . . . where was that singing coming from?
Now, you may very well ask, why would I now heed an Italian siren song in the wake of being tied to the mast and boldly resisting the call of an Alfa 2000 Berlina? I have no idea. All the reasoned arguments, carefully mustered, should have come to fore. I intimately knew the reputation of Italian cars abandoned to fate in a harsh and unforgiving USA. You only can hear ‘Fix It Again Tony’ so many times before it resides in your brain at the molecular level. At least the Alfa was a tried and true model that had been in production for going on a decade. The Beta was that rare beast, a clean sheet design, which should have sounded an alarm. For that matter, could it really even be considered a Lancia? Fiat now had its hands around the throat of the revered Lancia marque and there were hints that the Beta was nothing more than gussied up Fiat parts bin special. Furthermore, there was certainly no Lancia dealer in my town. Who was going to service said Beta?
Notice the non-battering ram bumpers of the Euro version
Customers the Jaguar salesman would have preferred
All those questions filled my head but quickly leaked out my ears. Look at those plush seats! Look at the cam cover castings on the Lampredi designed DOHC motore! Look at the dash with all those gauges in Italian! Look at the sunroof! And the Pirelli Cinturatos!
How much did they want for it? A ball park figure was soon acquired from a rather nonplussed Jaguar salesman who was accustomed to working with doctors and lawyers rather than a twenty-something with long hair and an oddly colored potential trade-in. Desperate times call for desperate measures . . . I mentioned, somewhat disingenuously, that my uncle may very well be interested in a new XJ-6, which was a complete fabrication as I knew he would cling to the steering wheel of his Volvos till his dying day. However, this ploy made the salesman’s eyes light up as he began the traditional back and forth march to the sales manager’s office. I had planted a seed and the prospect of a new Jag sale combined with a real desire to be rid of the funny Italian car (which he had likely never heard of) from his lot may have resulted in a deal that tilted toward that limited gray area of financial possibility on my end. He gave the Saab a once-over and quoted me a reasonable trade-in price. Long story short, a couple of days later Randal and were on our way to pick up the Lancia and bring her back to her new casa.
For anyone unfamiliar with Lancia S.p.A., I could spend all night telling tales around the campfire of the storied Italian brand, but none of them would likely convey the depth and scope of its importance to both Italy and automotive engineering in general. We can watch YouTube videos all the live long day that extol the virtues (and vices) of Ferraris and Lamborghinis, Alfas and Maseratis or even the odd DeTomaso or Pagani, but Lancia has fallen off the map due to . . . I suppose ‘mismanagement’ may be a harsh word, but Fiat, aka the GM of Italy, certainly qualifies for the award. Fiat acquired Lancia in the late Sixties after the latter had spent decades essentially hand building over-engineered, exquisite automobiles with outdated tooling and increasingly limited resources.
Now today it is just another cog in the vast Stellantis Galactic Empire, but in 1970 Fiat was truly a European powerhouse, producing 1.4 million vehicles and controlling over 50 percent of the Italian market. I don’t want to go on making GM comparisons all day, but those stats may ring a bell. More to the point, Fiat was a full range manufacturer, assembling everything from the humble 126, the old 500’s replacement, to the high end 130 Coupe, not to mention the Ferrari-powered Dino Coupe and Spider. Add to that the 127, 128, 124 berlina, 131, 132, 124 Coupe and Spider, and the X/1-9, a vehicle so astonishing that when I witnessed its debut at its Torinese source I was speechless. Who could match Fiat in those days? For range, depth, and engineering prowess, no one.
Low-end Fiat
High-end Fiat
Even higher-end Fiat. I rest my case
If anyone had the resources to save Lancia, it was Fiat. Fiat, of course, had its own long and distinguished history, but in a country famed for its automotive engineering, no one could match Lancia. Enzo Ferrari admitted as much when in 1955 he retired his own Formula One project in order to campaign what came to be known as the Lancia-Ferrari D-50, a car designed by Vittorio Jano with which Fangio would go on to win the 1956 World Championship. True to form, Lancia ran out of money to campaign the car and simply handed it over to Ferrari. Enzo may have been a proud man, but he was also practical and the quality of the D-50 was strikingly evident.
The Lancia-Ferrari D-50, campione del mondo
A Lancia Aurelia because why not?
A decade later the entire Lancia operation was handed in similar fashion over to Fiat, who quickly realized that if they continued to build Lancias by Lancia methods, they weren’t going to make any money, either. Consequently, the Lancia heritage was engineered out of the clean-sheet cars that Fiat had on the drawing boards. The V-6 and V-4 engines that set them apart were left on the scrapheap of history (replaced by Fiat’s in-house DOHC inline four), as was the obsession with detail and engineering perfection.
As a foreign albeit quasi-adopted bystander, my stake in all this was purely emotional . . . my absolute favorite car during my Italian sojourn had been the Fulvia Coupe, a tiny jewel of a car, its front wheels powered by a V-4 engine that looked like the orange crate it came in, but perfect in every detail. It remains my favorite car of all time. I saw one on the road in Washington State this summer, still elegant as ever–all Fulvia Coupes (and Zagatos) should be beatified and granted protected status.
La macchina più bella
But I digress. A Fulvia Coupe, even if one were available, would not have met my present needs, while there was a case to be made for the Beta. You can tell by one look that it followed the brief for Italian sedans, er, berline, i.e. a sedan is for carrying four or five (including la nonna) in dignified fashion, leaving the sexy stuff to the spiders and coupes. The Beta Berlina may look relatively innocuous today, but that fastback four door styling was cutting edge in the early seventies (and copied in many places from the Rover 3500 to the Chevrolet Citation), not to mention what lay under the sedate skin: four wheel independent suspension, four wheel disc brakes, transverse DOHC four cylinder, front wheel drive, five speed gearbox, and unit construction. So, while it may have appeared on the surface to be a sedate and slightly frumpy sedan in the Italian mode as the Flavias and Fulvias that came before it, its mechanical specs were bang up to date, futuristic, even. We will only mention the other members of Beta family in passing, including the lovely coupe, the jaw dropping HPE estate, the Montecarlo–a grown up X/1-9–and the Zagato, a modified coupe with a lift off top that came along a few years later. There’s no question that it was a line-up to envy, and it seemed to demonstrate that Fiat was serious about upholding the Lancia name and preserving its reputation for engineering innovation and quality.
Complete Beta range except for the Zagato
I can see my twenty-odd year old self poring over the specs and convincing myself that owning a Beta made all kinds of sense, but let’s face it, I was hooked on an Italian dream with limited basis in reality. This is not to say that my Lancia was a bad car . . . it was not, but it required a few things I wasn’t equipped to provide, including, chiefly, a heated garage and an Italian mechanic known on a first name basis. But all that is jumping ahead. First, let’s pose the sixty-four thousand dollar question: what was it like to drive? Well, it was bliss. We lived in a small town with a seven or eight mile road that curved down from a plateau alongside a creek. A series of sharp second gear turns followed. I took that way to and from work, and on a warm summer night with the sunroof open and the Lampredi twin cam singing, there was nothing more soul stirring.
Yeah, those seats are comfortable
View from the helm
But . . . there were a few issues that appeared early on. The first I discovered upon checking the trunk. The spare wheel apparently came from an Alfa. Ah well, a trip back to Salt Lake mustered up the appropriate replacement, so no worries. Checking the front passenger seat I noticed that one of the seams was coming apart. Easy enough to address. But then as fall turned to winter other issues surfaced. First of all, it didn’t like to start when the temps dropped below freezing. You may scoff and say, of course not, it’s Italian! It came from a Mediterranean climate! What do you expect? To which I would reply that I just returned from hiking the Italian Dolomites and it was freaking snowing in September! Don’t tell me that the engineers had no idea such a thing as snow and ice existed. You need an hour and a half, tops, to drive to the nearest ski area from Torino. Seriously, there was no excuse!
That’s right, the Dolomites
All that aside, we learned, eventually, how to coax the Beta to life when the thermometer dropped, so no harm done. But then one of those January inversions settled into the valley and the temperatures dropped well below zero, not to resurface until weeks later. I’d confronted this climactic deep freeze once before with the Simca . . . the fuel line had frozen solid and the car had to spend a night in a heated garage and then have a can of gas treatment dumped down its icy throat. The conditions were brutal and the Lancia cried no más!, or rather non posso più! This time it really wouldn’t start. I had it towed to the nearest Fiat dealer who diagnosed a slipped timing belt . . . the belt itself shouldn’t have required replacement for another 40,000 miles, but the cams had been so reluctant to turn in the minus 20 conditions that the belt jumped several teeth, which resulted in bent valves, of course. So, a total top end rebuild.
Some weeks later the Beta returned home, supposedly with a clean bill of health (and a block heater), but something sounded . . . off. The engine seemed a little bit louder. I shrugged and decided I was imagining things. Nevertheless, it continued to grow worse. The eventual diagnosis? A cracked exhaust manifold. Apparently the cold had worked its magic once again. An exhaust manifold couldn’t be too expensive, could it? In fact, it could, plus new ones were suspiciously scarce, back ordered all the way to Torino, seemingly. Dammit. I looked in the back pages of Road & Track and found an aftermarket header for half the price of a manifold. A couple of weeks later our bemused postman delivered something that looked like the complete plumbing apparatus for a new bath. Our local garage installed it without a backward glance, notwithstanding the fact that it was the only Lancia that would ever grace its lift.
Winter turned to spring and spring to summer. Only a few nagging issues surfaced, but other things were on our minds as we contemplated a move to the Pacific Northwest where I was enrolled in school for the next term. We loaded up a U-Haul truck, which I drove while Linda drove the Beta, together with our month old daughter. Along the way one of the front u-joints began behaving oddly and making an ungodly sound. Somehow we all made it to Seattle intact, but it was one more thing on a long list that kept getting longer.
You can see where this is going. We were both working and I was going to grad school. Fooling around with a temperamental Italian diva was not in the cards. It was time to move on, but to what? But that’s a question for the next installment. In the meantime let us conclude with some of Lancia’s greatest hits that followed in the ensuing years.
The Stratos (mic drop)
Lancia Thema 8.32. That’s right, the one with the Ferrari V8
Beta Zagato
Lancia Delta Integrale–together with the Fulvia and Stratos before it, World Rally Champion. Lancia won 11 championships.
Lancia Gamma Coupe…another flawed masterpiece
And finally, the sine qua non of Betas, the Montecarlo Turbo 2
As you see, Fiat can’t be accused of giving up after the Beta, but times change and economic conditions don’t always support even the best intentions. The Beta’s issues, including a rust problem often attributed to the use of Russian steel, doomed Lancia in the export market, even if in retrospect its corrosion troubles were matched by many 70’s cars, but the marque never really recovered. Lancia continued apace in the Italian market through several decades, but then the bottom fell out. The nadir had to have been when the proud Lancia scudetto was fixed upon… the Chrysler 300 and Town & Country minivan. I admired Sergio Marchionne for many things, but I will never forgive him for that.
Today Lancia produces a single model, the Ypsilon, based on the Cinquecento platform. At least the Cinquecento is cute.
How the mighty have fallen
As you owned a Saab prior to the Beta, you may know that Saab got into bed with Lancia in the late 1980s, marketing the Delta as the Saab 600 in Scandic markets.
The alliance progressed with The Type Four large (European) car platform used by Fiat Auto for their Croma, Lancia’s Thema and the Alfa Romeo 164 as well as the Saab 9000.
The objective was to save costs for both automakers but in the end, Saab had to extensively re-engineer many bits owing to their pre-occupation with safety and only the door panels were carried over.
It does boggle the mind to contemplate those strange bedfellows, at least the Saab element of it as the common platform made sense for the Italian makers. I hadn’t heard that Saab had to do some re-engineering, but it’s not particularly surprising.
The only one of the four I’ve been in is the Alfa 164. A friend had one for several years and it seemed to hold up fairly well. He held out hope for Alfa’s return to the American market but in the end was spooked, I think, by the Giulietta’s questionable reliability and bought an Audi.
Oh my – when cold weather causes massive mechanical repairs, that can be a problem. And I only *thought* I had experienced a temperamental diva in my 77 New Yorker. Your Beta seems to have written the manual on the subject.
Isn’t it amazing the things we thought were great, inspired ideas when we were in our twenties? 🙂
Wednesday mornings have not been this much fun in a long, long time – I am loving this series!
I imagine quite a few cars didn’t cope well with frigid weather in the ’70’s…they had a hard enough time dealing with normal conditions!
It’s probably a miracle that some of us survived our twenties…
And thanks for the kind words. We’ll keep at it!
Love your writing style, especially the opening paragraph.
Many thanks . . . I spent some time on it!
I can relate. My first car was a ’68 Saab 95 V4, which was T-boned by a Plymouth duster. When it came time to replace it, for a number of reasons I thought fuel economy was paramount. I was living in Colorado, so I’d appreciated the FWD, and there weren’t that many FWD cars at the time. I ended up with a ’71 Fiat 128, which I kept for 4 years. My experiences weren’t as dramatic as yours, but it lived up to the “Fix it again Tony” stereotype. My cars for the next 14 years were Saab 96 V4’s.
A Lancia Fulvia would be the #1 car in my fantasy garage. When the Beta was introduced, I was aware of Lancia’s history, and for my lira the Beta was a LINO (Lancia in name only).
My goodness, a 95 V4…at least it wasn’t a two-stroke! I came close to ditching the Beta at the time of the top end rebuild. The dealer that was doing the repairs tried to interest me in a 128, but buying a Fiat did feel a bit like kicking the can down the road. Glad you stayed committed to the Saab. I would have been wise to keep mine.
Glad to know there’s another Fulvia tifoso on board. I do feel bad about the Fiat/Lancia debacle as I think Fiat had good intentions, at least in the beginning. But as GM and others discovered, cutting corners doesn’t pay in the long run…
I have enjoyed this series, as it is well-written and wry in its observations on a varied cast of interesting vehicles.
Lancias were never numerous in the U.S., but I do remember seeing them on occasion in the Chicago suburbs in the late 1970s, perhaps because there was a large dealership nearby handling multiple marques (Fiat, Lancia, Alfa, MG, Triumph, Jaguar, and maybe Saab?).
Back in high school, I had a friend whose parents had immigrated from Italy and they always drove at least one Italian car. They had a beautiful Beta sedan, steel-blue with a tan leather (vinyl?) interior that I rode in a few times. I remember being impressed by the feel and scents of the cabin, the sound of the engine as my friend’s father snick-snicked through the gears, and the fact that it rode smoothly on potholed roads. Alas, it was gone within 18 months, bedeviled by constant mechanical ailments, and replaced by a BMW 5-Series, which proved far more reliable.
Thank you, William! I imagine that a shared dealership was the rule for most Lancia franchises. The one stand alone one I recall seeing was the one we had in North Seattle/Shoreline. It seemed at the time to be a fly-by-night operation and I wasn’t optimistic that it would long survive. Can’t remember when they closed their doors, but I think it was well before Lancia folded its North America operations.
First impressions of the Beta Berlina, and all Betas, I think, were mostly positive. It was living with them that was the problem, which is very sad given their good qualities. Glad your friend’s parent had good luck with the BMW. In our shop we saw a lot of very rusty 3-series. Don’t recall seeing many 5-series, though.
Thanks for another splendid chapter. Or painful, as the case may be. Yes, the Beta was a seductive thing, no matter which form it was in. There were a fair number to be seen in SoCal in the mid-late 70s, but the sedans left the stage pretty quickly, as they did not inspire the devotion to keep them running like the sporty members of the family.
It was an early ambition of mine to find one, even moldering in a back yard, when I started CC, but I gave up long ago. Your COAL is the first piece we’ve done on the Beta sedan, so your pains are now our gains.
Thank you, Paul. It may have been a better idea to stick with the coupes and Montecarlo/Scorpion in the US, but the result would ultimately have been the same. The Beta stories coming out of the UK were brutal. As I understand it, Fiat/Lancia ended up buying back a large percentage of the Berlinas because of the rust issues.
I have a UK CAR magazine issue from the 70’s in which they do a Giant Test comparo of the Beta Montecarlo and the Lotus Esprit and they regarded them as near equal, which is an interesting take. If you’re interested I could try and take some decent photos of the article.
Steven, thanks for this. With regards to these Lancias’ propensity to rusting as soon as they left the factory’s gate, we had a quite a few Betas in Israel back then and they rusted even there. Sadly, hardly any remained in even a semi-restoarble state. Good car let down by shoddy materials and build quality – the Lampredi twin-cam was actually a very good engine which would last to 160,000 miles before needing any attention (head off, valves check and lap and maybe cams), not bad for a high performance unit.
Right…if it had just been a matter of rusting sheet metal, that would have been bad enough, but the real issue was rusting chassis components. Hard to defend when wheels are falling off and engines are falling out!
Subscribed to learn what happens next .
-Nate
Many thanks, Nate!
You might want to read the 3rd ‘graph of this post. Like your timing belt issue, but worse.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-were-not-likely-to-find-1976-lancia-gamma-the-subaru-legacy-of-its-time/
Staxman–I did read that recently, and I’ve come across other accounts of the camshaft drive issue. What a nightmare. Given that the engine involved was a true Lancia flat four derived from the old 2000 (rather than a Fiat motor), you have to wonder if maybe there had been a brain drain at Lancia after the Fiat takeover. Why on earth would a group of competent engineers make such a fundamental error?
I like that we are able to bring the gospel of Lancia to readers who otherwise had either never heard of it or always figured they were just makers of some backward southeastern European crap-carts. Far be the difference, though in reality in unfamiliar lands and hands things didn’t always work out as intended or engineered for multitudes of reasons not always to do with the design or manufacture itself.
Yes, another excellent chapter and after three of four cars all likely to frighten the average car buyer into a lifetime of Camry bliss I’m counting down the days until whatever you dredge up for next week’s installment. Perhaps a Triumph or Rover, but you haven’t plumbed the depths of Citroen yet either so there’s lots of hope…
I imagine sometimes we might blame the accountants (bean counters?) for issues that seem highly avoidable in hindsight. I’m thinking of all the GM sins from Corvair to Northstar and beyond. Let’s save a few pennies and bring untold grief to the consumer and company down the road. If that’s the case with decision to use low-quality Russian steel in the Beta…
I regret to say that no Triumphs or Rovers are in the offing (how I managed to avoid having a Citroen is inexplicable), but I hope to keep you interested all the same!
The slipped timing belt reminds me of my 1975 VW Rabbit during the Blizzard of 1978 in Indianapolis. Our cars were not garaged at that time, and blowing snow filled up the engine compartments. For my wife’s Toyota Corolla, it was a relatively simple matter to blow out the snow from the carburetor air intake. But for the Rabbit, the partially exposed timing belt allowed snow to get in, causing the belt to slip when I tried to start the car. As a result the Rabbit had to make yet another trip on the hook of a tow truck. At least there were no bent valves.
Hurrah for non-interference motors! Surprising that VW got that right in the 70’s when so many others didn’t. I don’t recall if the timing belt cover in the Lancia allowed the elements to enter, but I suppose that may be the case, although I think it was the sub-zero temps that raised havoc in my case. I’ll have to check into it.
I had the opportunity to get photos of a Fulvia Berlina a few years ago. When I arrived at the owner’s house, I immediately asked him to lift the hood. The narrow-angle V4 is truly a thing of beauty.
I had the opportunity to get photos of a Fulvia Berlina a few years ago. When I arrived at the owner’s house, I immediately asked him to lift the hood. The narrow-angle V4 is truly a thing of beauty.
The Harry’s Garage channel on YouTube had a series on the restoration of a Fulvia Zagato coupe a few years back, including an in-depth look at the V-4 as it was taken apart and put back together. Maybe I didn’t realize the depths of my Lancia nerd-factor until I watched that. It really was a jewel of a motor.
The saga continues although he’s almost there…
Great opening to your tale Steven!
People say things to me about Alfas that were no doubt said to you about Lancias. And then you think about the history, the Italian style (perhaps the Rosso Alfa?) and sense of occasion that accompanies opening the door, washing it with your neighbour casting glances, or showing someone the key when they say they’ve got a new Skoda…..and it’s all worth it.
In reality, would many 1970s European driver oriented cars with a limited dealer network offered much better service in the tough environment of the PNW Rockies and deserts? Perhaps a SAAB or Mercedes-Benz? Not a Rover or a Triumph, or dare I say an Alfetta?
Thanks, Roger! What you describe is why I remain an apologist for Italian cars. There really is something about the fusion of history, engineering and style that make them unique.
I think you’re absolutely right about the problems encountered by the lower volume European makers in the ’70’s, although Saab and Volvo seemed to respond well simply because their cars were engineered for similar conditions. The British cars were often hopeless. My girlfriend had an MG and it was a disaster come winter, as you might imagine. We didn’t see many Rovers, even after the new 3500 appeared, nor were Alfas common. In the end, you had to be pretty committed to buy something unusual from Europe as the support and service just weren’t there.
I should re-read this article every time I start think that I’ve made some poor automotive choices in my past. This beats them all.
Out of curiosity, I looked up Road & Track’s 1975 Beta sedan road test, just to see if they noted any build-quality concerns. They did not, and only mentioned quality when noting a “crunching sound” from the gearbox, which R&T attributed to being given a car that was already tested by other magazines. The road test concluded by saying “…the buyer who is seeking a sporty family sedan would do well to consider the Lancia Beta.” Well, buyer beware.
Mixed feeling about the example I set! I’m trying to think of a car you could buy today that would be an equivalent disaster. I know conventional wisdom pointed toward the Giulietta and Stelio, but then you read other accounts of them being just fine. Same goes for Range and Land Rovers. On the whole, cars seem to be a lot more reliable in this day and age.
Don’t know how much we can blame Road & Track for their Beta appraisal. They did seem solid and well built when new, and a rust problem would take time to rear its head. I hate to be in the position of a victim of abuse defending the abuser, but I still have fond memories of the Lancia. If Stellantis really does resurrect Lancia, as they indicate they might, I’d consider buying one if it met my needs. But I might buy the extended warranty!
Where I grew up, we didn’t have many Lancias. Pre-GM Saabs were about the least likely cars to start when you turned the key in any weather.
And here I’ve regretted getting rid of my 99 because it always did start at the first turn of the key, no matter what the weather! But I did only have it for a couple of years. Long term, it might have been another matter…
To echo verbatim what 83 LeBaron said, I really like your writing style, even in tales of woe like this one.
As I remember that GM had examined the Lancia Beta Berlina when developing the X-cars (i.e. Chevy Citation, et. al), it has occurred to me that both cars with this same basic shape were unlucky.
Another great entry.
Thank you, Dennis! I fear automotive woe is something all too easy to relate to…
I remember seeing those photos of the Lancia mules at GM. In my next installment I mention test-driving a Citation. I’m here to say that the Beta drove nothing like a Citation. The GM engineers really should have paid better attention if they intended to copy Beta, which really was well-engineered, but let down in the details, such as rust-proofing and niggling reliability issues. The Citation? It bore all the marks of being rushed to market all around half-baked…
I see (the sole intention of) what you did there.
Me, I have never felt any attraction or desire for an Italian car. I sort of understand the fetish, intellectually, and I imagine the engine and exhaust did make sounds every bit as fun as you say in those second-gear twisties, but that’s as appreciative as I get. On every occasion I’ve got close to them—had a ride, or a friend showing one off, or been round a show—my reflexive reaction has been a resounding nope! The tune-up procedure and parts list (and cost) for a friend’s pet ’75(?) Ferrari, for example, was just cartoonishly absurd; set the timing at I-forget-how-many-thousand RPM, etc, and I just smiled and nodded until the show-and-tell was over (I don’t say these are the correct responses, only that they are mine and I’m sturdily comfortable with them).
That said, nobody—nobody!—can make a car quite so red as the Italians can. I declare, that paint on the Delta Integrale would look much dimmer on any other car. I don’t know how they do it, but they do.
Stuff like this is fundamentally not okeh by me. To me, this evinces the opposite of engineering prowess. That said, I do realise the opposite end of this continuüm results in different but roughly equivalent badness. My hated ’07 Accord was my № 1 example until it got toppled to № 2 this past long weekend, which was meant to be a relaxing mini vacation to a place with more scenery and fewer people, but my blood pressure was kept up in the eek/eek range by an absolute pearl of a 2022 BMW X2 rentcar; pearls are formed by constant irritation.
I wondered if anyone would pick up the PF reference!
I wonder, too, if I would have ended up with an Italian auto fixation if I hadn’t lived there? Maybe not, but then I had always been a racing fan and so I might have entered through that door. I absolutely sympathize with what you say about your friend’s Ferrari. In my forthcoming numbers I’ll talk abut my experience working on them, and I admit that I was somewhat disillusioned–their flaws became apparent and I had to rethink my former quasi-worship of them. It definitely made me realize I didn’t want to own one (unless maybe I won the lottery!). But then I saw the faults of many other cars from other countries at the same time. In the end, I de-fetishized my automobile buying, not that it really saved me that much money in the end…
I’d be interested to hear about your BMW rent-a-car experience! And thanks for the Electric Company throw back!
All the way home down the highway I was mentally editing what to say about the rented BMW. I need some time to cool off about it or it’ll just be fountains and rivers and lakes of molten lava—think Joe Pesci at full throttle, since we’re on the subject of Italy.
I await the story with bated breath!
“That said, nobody—nobody!—can make a car quite so red as the Italians can.”
Too much yellow in that red .
-Nate
Wonder if that’s a factory color?
No, the ’60 Valiant red was much orangier. This is closer to the American ’61 Valiant red, but it was probably painted in Australia after the RHD conversion, so I doubt it matches the American colours of any year.
Lovely ’60 Valiant, but still not as electric red as that Delta Integrale. The Valiant’s red has more magenta and more black in it.
The siren song of Italy but I say stick to the pasta and you can’t go wrong.
Amen, brother! Don’t forget the gelato!
Might you had meant the cannoli like in forget the car take the cannoli. A fellow I know, born and bred New York city boy and Italian, couldn’t believe I never had a cannoli. I’m Irish what can I say…
If we keep adding to the list of wonderful Italian things we’ll be here all night!
Trying to think of the Irish equivalent of cannoli…
I daresay when the Irish have a hankering for something broadly along the lines of cannoli, they get (or make)…
…cannoli! There is no substitute.
I wasn’t there, it wasn’t me. I didn’t do it! Besides, I had 2 Fiat 850s: coupé and convertible, neither of which ran…well.
😂😂😂😂
1982 , Auckland, New Zealand -Auckland Harbour Bridge Toll Booths my fathers shift at telecom ended at 4:45 everyday that 15 minutes was so important to beat the rush hour ( auckland traffic is nothing like that now) and the drive home was over the harbour bridge to the North Shore was stopped at the toll booths . – in a semi unofficial drag race my fathers 74 blue lancia beta was the fastest car off the line in the entire peninsula ( no porsches or V8 cars due to carless days and price of petrol ) – nostalgia is strong with this one probably as the harsh realities is that beta was gone by 83 ( to be replaced by a Renault Dauphine and two Borgward Isabellas)
Great story, Tim! Memory fades regarding the Beta’s gearing, but it must have a stump-puller first to get off the line like that…
You know your product has problems when its being replaced by a Renault Dauphine and two Borgwards!
I bought a ‘78 Beta Sedan in ‘79. Brand new. Dealers were practically giving
them away. $6K for $8+K window sticker! Drove it 78K trouble free miles.
I admit I maintained the be Jesus w/it … never a problem. Comfortable car!
Shame we never saw ‘81/‘82 2 ltr. injected ones stateside. Great article.
At last–a Beta success story! Fiat seemed to follow the GM trajectory with the Beta: real improvements down the line after the car’s reputation had been destroyed. But it’s good to read that someone had a good experience.
That’s a flashback to my mid 70s childhood, wandering the showroom of the Volvo/Fiat/Lancia dealer while the family 164E was in the shop. I was fascinated by the X 1/9, the Beta Coupe, 128 3P and 124 coupe and didn’t care for Beta sedans or 124 sedans.
Given the epic rust 70s Fiats and Lancias swiftly disappeared from my native New York but are probably still roaming salt free Oregon, if the electricals survived.
Over the last few days I’ve dug up a couple of fun facts to know and tell. The Beta shared its transmission with the Citroen CX. The engine used the Fiat block with Lancia’s bespoke cylinder head.