Lancia Beta Forum

I have a front lens which is similar to, but smaller than the one from my spyder.
I think it's from a Berlina, but can anyone confirm this?
The photo shows my larger one and the mistery one.
Thanks

"Mystery" one is common to a lot of cars such as Fiat 131, Fiat 127, Maserati Biturbo, Lamborghini Diablo etc....

Fiat 132, eh?
That's where I remember it from. My first REAL car back in 1981 and with over sixty cars under my belt since, it remains one of my top five favourites!

Yes Fiat 132 as well. In fact most Fiats (126, 127, 128, 131, 132, Mk1 Strada etc) had these fitted.

(http://www.ecarsflow.com/images/fiat-132-07.jpg)

Think I remember correctly, but did they have the perpex sunblinds which pulled down?

I had one as a company car (directors cast off) in 1980 for a few weeks, soft suspension, but nice car to drive, previous cast off was a HPE for 6 moths or so, really enjoyed that....

Peter

That was the later type with amber perspex sunblinds on the side windows.
Mine was the earlier type without power steering or any of yer fancy stuff!
That said, comfort was mercedes-class and the blue nylon seats were ultra posh as was the dimmable rear view mirror and cigar lighter and a glovebox with a light. Such extravagence was marvelled at my my friends and I and the "huge" 185/70/13 tyres were not even available "off the shelf" in rural Ireland at that time and my Dunlop SP Sport 70's  had to be ordered specially and cost an unforgettable £45 each 31 years ago which was almost exactly 2/3 of my week's wages as a 4th. year electrical apprentice.
It had a turning circle like a canal barge but was one of the most enjoyable driving cars I ever owned and the braking and roadholding were excellent especially compared to the Mk3 Cortina which I had previously owned.
By the way, Betas were only for the extravagant and wealthy here.

Definitely not 126s  8)

Yes, you are right  :-[  126s had the sidelight within the headlamp so just a single (usually amber) lens for the indicators. It's my old age.... arthritis of the brain.... I forget things these days....  :-\

If I'm not mistaken (and as already mentioned) it's from a 128 - I've one exactly the same and it's where I remember taking it from. They also went on earlier 131's.

The company I worked for was a young IT startup in the late 70s and made shed loads of money (sadly not me, the directors). Cars were whatever you wanted for them, the MD had a drop dead gorgeous Red 635CSI with light blue leather and manual from memory. The 132 as I remember it had amazing brakes as you say, especially after the Cortina MK IV I had to start with, but hey when a someone's says here is a 2.0 litre car to drive, pays your petrol and you are 23, you are not going to argue......

(sorry for highjacking the thread)

Peter

When I was learning to drive my dad had a little Fiat van for his grocery shop but his car was a gold 2.0 132 auto. I learned to drive in the van, my instant reward for passing my test was to take my dad to the pub in the 132 then drive home on my own. There after I drove it quite a lot until it was sold. An impressive intro to the twin cam. Imagine trying to add a 17 year old to the insurance for a 2 litre car these days!

I have to agree, as an 18 year old I had job which as well as the regular salary paid overtime for weekends as well. I bought myself a metallic bronze 131 Supermirafiori (1.6) from Knibbs Manchester which was TNF 309X. That car was in our family for the next 9 years but I had a mate who worked for an insurance brokers in Wythenshawe and he laughed hysterically as I paid £31 a month insurance in 1983.......

He kieled over two years later when I got me a 1.6 Beta Coupe!! 8)

Reading these posts, two things come to mind.
1) how easy it is to get off-topic ;D
2) your comment about insurance costs got me thinking about my daughter who insured her BMW 318IS 1.9 at age 19 with a full licence for one year and one year's NCD for €540 fully comp.
I thought "Not bad", but looking at it now, it's about the only motoring-related bargain I'm aware of in Ireland!

Off topic but couldn't really start a new thread about Fiats could we!

Look at this way, without Fiat we wouldn't even have this site ;)

I'd have to disagree with that statement...... ;-) 

And Mr Lampredi.....  ;D

not sure why? if fiat hadn't bought lancia ford might have stepped in we might have ended up with posh versions of grey porridge  the lancia cortina ghia and the lancia capri hf

Why?

Imagine if Renault had stepped in?
Oh the horror :'(

Imagine your Beta with a 1.6 x-flow "powering" it along at almost 80MPH and rattling like two skeletons misbehaving in a dustbin!
God bless Fiat (And Mr. Lampridi too, Tony)
Any you admin guys for this site.
(All part of my acceptance speech should I ever receive an award for anything ;))

I should clarify.... Fiat have nothing to do with this site, its just volunteers & enthusiasts.  I'd like the Beta regardless of who the parent company was and would anyone really not buy a car based purely on who the parent company was?    How many Jaguar buyers are lost purely on the fact that Tata Motors own them?  Not many i'd guess. 

Just my opinion.

Aside from Tim Speechly who is really helpful I really don't think people at fiat think much of lancias heritage even the cars that were built in their control

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It will be interesting to see what the Fiat attitude to the Lancia marque in mainland Europe is like, rather than the age old British opinions that were based soley on the 70's rust scandal.

From what I've experienced the Europeans moved on a long time ago and don't remember or care too much about a rust issue that happened 40 years ago.

I will probably look at a new model of Lancia in France, so I'll get the dealer experience over there and see what they are like.

Matt, my comment about not having this site was no way meant to imply I ever imagined Fiat had anything to do with its being.
I realise the people who set up and run it are enthusiasts and it would exist in some form as long as someone had produced a Lancia Beta
I would agree with what you mean in so far as  the parent company wouldn't influence my decision either, just the paring of the Fiat-sourced engine with the Lancia design resulted in such a fantastic car and it's the end result of this mating that has made me a fan.
My point is that if the car was a result of different influences, it's following may have been by a different "breed" of enthusiasts to ourselves who would have appreciated the resultant product for different reasons to ours.

when I bought a delta hpe hf from Rotterdam back in 99 I can assure you that the experience was much better than from a UK dealer however fiats attitude to lancia had gone down hill since then so who knows?

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Just my 2 penny worth, but suspect that it is the old chestnut 'it depends' when considering Fiat's attitude to Lancia, and where the guy's or women's loyalty/pay cheque is coming from. Certainly I would agree in mainland Europe the attitude on the dealers part should be wholly different, as the Fiat dealerships who carry Lancia as well will only have people who go back typically up to 10+ years, so the old issues will be largely forgotten.

The problem with the UK is we are stuck in the time warp for now of the 80s view of Lancia with the rust issue fresh in folks minds, followed by (for me) cars which really did not look interesting, the exception being the Intergrale, but that was always a high value low volume car.

Peter

I don't think rust it's very much on anybodys mind except the stupid british media these days.  They just turn out a lot of pot boiled journalism full of half truth and badly researched detail

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As far as I'm concerned, the only real issur surrounding Lancias and rust was the relitavely small market share held by Lancia.
I have been driving since 1977 and I've owned Leyland, Ford, Datsun, Toyota and Fiat from the 70's and 80's and every one of them had serious rot.
A Datsun I owned actually had the front wheels come back into the wheel wells when I had to brake hard one day and a Mini had the rail to which the front seats attached, seperate from the floor and both myself and my girlfriend finished up in the back and we were damned lucky not to have been injured.
Lancia became the poster child for rot because the industry allowed it to be and took attention away from the much bigger-selling brands which in my experience were equally poor body-wise and certainly unsafe after a few years old.
The earlier Mazdas had their share of  rot issues as well and early 21st. century E-class Mercs are renowned, in Ireland anyway, for having considerable rust issues around wheel arches and sills and I'm aware of several that failed the NCT (our version of the UK's MOT) for chassis rot!
Spindoctoring and manipulation have as much part, if not more, than actual quality when it comes to the Beta's reputation.

Interesting point about the E class, that is a surprise. recently went looking at used Mercs and guy in the showroom was more than a little critical about the C class cars build quality.

I also know from a relative who used to work in an armouring business in the 80/90s that they would receive brand new Rollers and the some of the wings were rusty before they left the factory.........

Peter

Just to chip in, we had two W211 E's in the family but saw the rear arch rot issues whilst looking at earlier versions - happily sorted from 2002 onwards and I'd agree, Lancia copped for the rust issues when all around were just as bad. I worked with a girl who's early Polo had a bad case of the Fred Flintstone's in the footwell department. Cortinas' were not much better and Datsuns', BL rubbish the same and so forth. Mini subframes, Rover 213/216's (OMG) and the list goes on

When I think about the press hysteria from that time I think of the old football addage - "your hate makes us strong"  ;)

To be fair series one beta berlinas, along with all 70s fiats and the Alfa sud and anything Japanese, were terrible for rust but the media tarred every beta with the same brush later cars were probably average for the time.front subframe mounts that they went/still go on about in the press hardly ever rust on betas after the first berlinas that had the design fault

Whatever you do, don't mention parking/indicator lenses. I did once, but I think I got away wiyh it ;)

Yes, but interesting to see how some threads have a life of their own......

And as a bonus you did get an answer to your question, so a full result.

Peter

Plus some of us still have Fiats with those lenses fitted  ;) :D ;D

(http://www.131mirafiori.com/photos/Theo/Hugo.JPG)

That is one beautiful car!

That 131 Sport is indeed fab (and valuable). Some years ago I had an orange 131 Racing briefly, not too many of those around either!!  8)

I always remember driving a friend's one and the overall impression was a great straight line car that didn't like corners and wasn't too good at slowing down either, but like all twin cams, was free-revving and just kept on accelerating as long as your hoof was firmly planted

The only difference between the 131 Sport and the 131 Racing is the badge on the back of the car and the country the car was sold in. The car was originally named "131 Racing" but the UK insurance authorities gave the car a high insurance grouping because of the name so for the UK market the car was named as "131 Mirafiori Sport". Apparently Germany also got the "Mirafiori Sport" badge on the cars. It's only a guess on my part but I think cars imported to the UK had the "Racing" badge on them and the dealers replaced them with "Mirafiori Sport" but towards the end of sales in the UK they no longer bothered and a few cars were sold with the "Racing" badge on them. Unless of course it's the Italians in the Fiat factory that didn't bother to change the badges (or maybe they run out of "Mirafiori Sport" badges  ;D )

I'm obviously very biased as I am a big fan of the Fiat 131 (I've owned at least one since 1978) but I think you re being slightly unkind.  The brakes were the same as most other Fiats of the time and they were very good if kept in tip-top condition but a lot of older cars had disks well past their best and were fitted with cheap pads that faded with the slightest application. Plus the rear drum brake self adjusters never self adjusted so unless manually adjusted the brake pedal travel was very long. So while your memory of 131 braking performance is probably correct, it was most likely due to badly maintained brakes.  Cornering performance though was and is very good for a car with a solid rear axle; at least it's fine on normal roads. I remember chasing a 131 Abarth Stradale (with independent rear suspension) round the South of Ireland in 2007 and while I could keep up or even catch it on the straight bits, I had no chance round the bendy bits  :-[ The Stradale simply turned round the corners as if on rails while my car bounced around the corners  :-\

Fiat 131 s on the Healy pass (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DszBJNKzy8k#noexternalembed)

But I think enough hijacking of this thread (apologies!  :) ) if anyone has a keen interest in 131s and other Fiats of the same era then come for a visit over at www.131mirafiori.com (http://www.131mirafiori.com)  ;) :D

Hi again, maybe just a point of order but the gearbox ratios from sport to Racing were different (diff final drive too) but they were more or less one and the same car. I think the carb(s) certainly when new were also jetted marginally different - I enjoyed a lot of my early apprentiship working on new / nearly new ones. Not sure about non-UK cars. :)

Sorry, allow me do disagree with you Tony  ;) The UK cars were badged as "Mirafiori Sport" but the handbooks still referred to them as "Racing" as they were the same car. Gearbox and diff ratios were the same and only carb differences (if any) were due to country and local fuel differences. Swiss cars, for example, had extra emission reducing equipment fitted. 

Hi, noted, could have been mistaken,

Regards

Tony

There was no injected version of the 131, apart of diesel ;)

Well, strictly speaking that's true but the USA version of the 131 Mirafiori which was known as the Brava had versions with fuel injection  ;) But also some of the works rally 131 cars had kugelfischer mechanical fuel injection although it was never fitted to the road going Stradale versions; they simply had a single twin choke carb.

But when I mentioned emission equipment I didn't mean fitted to injection engines. Some 131 engines had vacuum operated air valves that would introduce clean air into the exhaust ports; a system also used in the first series Gammas and possibly other Lancias. Emissions are measured as percentage of the bad stuff in the exhaust gasses so if you add plenty of fresh air in the exhaust the percentage of the bad stuff is considerably less  ;)

Here's a 131 engine with such equipment fitted.

(http://i766.photobucket.com/albums/xx305/kev132/FishingTrip300711014.jpg)

 

My 131 panoramasuper was exactly equipped with this system. It was a scandinavian version imported from Sweden. The engine code was 131C4.054.