Beta review

[Walbarr]

Aside from the title found this to be overall a fair review
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qrWaYTemqKA

[Kevinlincs]

I've seen quite a few of his videos, seems to be pretty fair really.
I know from being an apprentice in the early 80's that Italian cars rusting were far from the only ones doing so, many a Sierra had to have the rear arches welded up at even 3 or 4 years old, even holes in the roofs not much later on. Any Metro coming in for the used car lot inevitably got a new pair of wings and often a front panel due to excessive rust.

My own theory on why it was percieved that Italian cars rusted and "British" stuff didn't is brought about from my time working in said used car gaarge where we regularly sold 15+ cars week from a stock of around 60 to 80 cars in a small village setting, mostly cars from3 to no more than 10 years old.
The garage owner would have a purchase agreement with most of the main dealers in town for their trade ins that were deemed not suitable for their own stock, needing a bit of paint or whatever.
We were getting the Mk3 Escorts and Sierras from the Ford dealers, Metro and Maestro/Montego from the BL garage etc
These pretty much all needed repairs so our own bodyman was kept busy, a car would get the arches filled and sprayed up even when 3 or 4 years old then put on the forecourt for sale where people would remark on how well they looked. Once they'd owned them for 2 or 3 more years the now 8 or so year old car would be traded back in, rust showing through of course only for the saying of "oh well, it's lasted fairly well" to go back into the paintshop for yet another dose of filler and paint to be sold to the unsuspecting 3rd owner who again remarked on how well they lasted compared to the "foreign rubish"
Justified by the sorry looking Alfa/Fiat/Lancia that hadn't had the luxury of a 2nd round of respray because people didn't want them so it wasn't worth spending time and money painting them, so they looked far worse much sooner than the Fords etc. The origninal Italian car alongside a same age Escort looked sad and tired but the Ford was on its' 2nd or 3rd coat of paint!
Who else remembers the Escort trouble of batteries falling through the bulkhead and onto the top of the glovebox? A trade in needing this replacing was checked by opening the glovebox, if you got a shower of rustflakes then you knew it needed doing, especially so if the carpet was wet through! People would pour thick tar like undereal under the battery in an attempt to stop thewater getting in.
Italian stuff did rust of course, but it was no worse than any other, just it didn't get the cover up by garages like where I worked which hid the truth from customers.

And the BMW stuff of the 70's was regarded as rubbish in the trade! Troublesome and expensive, they were hard to shift on the used car lot. I agree fully with the guy in the video on the fact that a good PR team makes marques sucessful rather than a great product, just look at the VW group scenario of dull cars with an inbuilt cheat system to beat the emissions test, they brushed that aside and still get a reputation for desirable cars, all thanks to the PR machine than anything else.

I also agree with the comment at the start that the new Ypsilon is way too much like the Peugeot/Vauxhall to be considered a viable option for me. 

[frankxhv773t]

Some very interesting points there Kevin about the used car trade. Geoff Owen's book "Turning Back the Clock, The life and times of a motor trader" is always worth reading on the subject of Betas.

I always point out to people whose first reaction to a Lancia is "RUST" is to point out that the Alfa Sud was even worse that the Beta but "rust" isn't the automatic reaction to mention of an Alfa these days. The Beta "rust scandal" was a media hatchet job perpetrated by tabloid newspapers and Esther Rantzen's "That's Life" program which gave the problem massively more prominence than was warranted. It got that prominence precisely because Lancia was still perceived as a premium brand.

The idea that the Beta killed Lancia is easily disproven by the success of the Delta, however, I do think the Beta is an inflection point in the decline of Lancia. The Beta marks the beginning of FIAT ownership when cars started to be built down to a cost rather than up to an engineering standard. Added to that I feel that FIAT never really had a clear enough idea of what to do with Lancia. It became almost like Riley or Wolseley in BL, different but not different enough. had the takeover happened a few decades later Lancia could have been FIAT's Lexus.

[Kevinlincs]

The comparison between Lancia and the old scenario with BL/Wolsely and Riley is apt for where Lancia are now within Stellantis, a mildly warmed over version of an existing brand. Not Lancia enough to satisfy the purist yet why would the mainstream pick it over a Peugeot or Vauxhall?
I'm mildy curious over the new Ypsilon but it's not different enough from the cars it's built from for my taste, not that I'm in any way expecting it to arrive here in the UK in RHD format.

On the Alfa rust thing I have had and restored a few Suds now and you do get the "nice cars but they rusted in front of your eyes" comments but i agree not to the level that Lancia seem to get. Alfa seem to have almost shaken off the image now, I still get the odd comment when people see I have a Giulietta as a daily driver but it's rare so time does eventually allow the image to be shaken off. Cars like the Giulia helped of course, but alas Alfa too are going down the same route with their offerings, mildly worked over Peugeot/Vauxhall products from the Stellantis range.
It seems the days of individually engineered cars have passed us by.

[frankxhv773t]

simonandjuliet's comments on the new Ypsilon suggest it may have something over the Peugeot Vauxhall equivalent. We'll have to see how that goes.