beta coupe ownership

[craig12]

how easy is beta coupe ownership? are parts hard to come by and is it a specialist type car for servicing or can the old school mechanics do it , is reliability a problem on good condition cars? is rust as bad as some would have you believe or is it just hype, looking for a car for some fun at car shows but not concourse just tidy and clean that could be improved cosmetically, always loved em..jeremy clarksons favourite car by all accounts thats the beta coupe.he describes it as the most beautiful thing hes ever seen,. kind regards craig. yes the sandy beige one was nearly sold to me at £2400 i think he was a policemen from the noth east area but i needed the cash for my business ..missed out on a good one ..never mind

[MattNoVAT]

Owning a Beta is fairly easy as long as you know what your getting into.

Mechanical parts are fairly easy to maintain if your handy with the spanners.  Old school garages won't have any issues.  Most parts are easy to locate especially service items but trim parts are getting harder to find. I've found them reliable, providing they are looked after properly, but the same can be said for any 30-35 year old car.

You get what you pay for and the really good examples demand the highest price. Each car should be judged on its own merits.

I've owned several Betas, my current one for over 20 years, I'm restoring my second one right now and I've loved every minute of owning them.

[HFStuart]

On the rust issue I second what Matt said. Series 1 excepted (and you're very unlikly to find one) They are no worse than any other car of the period and better than many. Clean unused cars still turn up on occasion. My spider was a one owner with 60k from new. The front strut mounts were rotted out but everything else is rock solid with almost no corrsion anywhere.

[rossocorsa]

to be realistic you are unlikely to find a condition 2/3 Beta without some rust but the same could be said of any car of this sort of vintage. The series2FL onwards cars tend to be much better than the S1 and S2 cars (those with brown dashboards)  not least because wheel arch liners at the front almost completely eliminated some of the worst corrosion at the front. Most critical place to check is the rear turrets mainly at lower levels where the inner arch meets the boot floor and along the seams also look at the inner wheel arch from the outside particularly where there is a rectangular pressing at the lower edge. If you find significant corrosion assume that it is more deep than it first appears, I know this from bitter experience with my volumex........ again though not really any different to what you'd find on other marques of this era. With a bit of care though you should be able to find a usable and attractive coupé for quite modest money and they are great fun to drive, it must have more style panache and smiles per £ than any other classic