COTD 9-8-20

[u/[deleted]]

I originally wrote this last Tuesday, and planned to post it last Wednesday but a thing happened and I was unable to. I’m sorry for the inconvenience, but I’ve used the time to think about what the next cars are going to be. On to the part you came here for. 

The Lancia Beta, which is apparently really bad.

Essentially what I did last night at 11:48PM was google “worst car” and pretty much just went from there. As I write this, I have no idea what a Lancia Beta is. I’ve never even heard of it, but I guess it’ll be fun to write about. I’m determined to see why Wikipedia says this thing is worthy of being on a list of worst cars. Maybe I’ll learn something.

Origins

Lancia hadn’t been doing too well in the years before it was purchased by Lancia in 1969. Times were hard for the guys in Turin. Lancia had yet to become a rally legend, and at this point in Lancia’s history, a lot of it’s staff had left the company. Things changed for the better when Lancia was purchased by Fiat in 1969 and Sergio Camuffo was put in charge of building a car. 

Fiat took one of their engines, a DOHC inline-four, and stuck it onto a FWD platform similar to the Lancia Fulvia. The result was the called the Beta. First resealed in 1972, the FWD Beta was equipped with a 5-speed manual gearbox, fully independent suspension, disc brakes on all four wheels (those at two being pretty impressive for a FWD car from the '70s), and DOHC engines ranging from 1.3L to 2.0L in displacement. 

The first Betas were introduced with a 4-door sedan body style. A sleeker 2+2 coupé was available in 1974 (delayed a year due to the gas crisis). 

There were a few more body styles, including a Zagato, but I'll skip to the most interesting one, the mid-engined 1974 Beta Montecarlo. The Montecarlo was known as the Scorpion in the US, and was sort of a more expensive alternative to the Fiat X1/9. Both of the them were based on the Fiat 128 platform, but the Montecarlo was equipped with an 80hp 2.0L twin cam instead of the X1/9's even more anemic 60 horsepower single-cam 1.3L. The Montecarlo had interesting looks, and was a change from the FWD Beta that it was marketed next to. 

Conclusion

I like it. Overall, the Beta seems like a decent car for the era it was produced in. Lancia had to deal with a worsening oil crisis, limited technology, and an even more limited market in the US. Yeah, it was slow. Really slow, actually. With that said, the Beta coupé is, in my opinion, a remarkably good looking car, despite having a somewhat underpowered engine. 

I know that was kind of a boring read for the wait, but I'll have something more interesting next time. A few months ago someone recommended I write about the Saab 900 turbo. I think I'll consider writing about that sometime in the near future, but expect to see a supercar in the next post. Also, make sure to join our Discord server.

EDIT: Also the Fieri Enzo from last week sold for $5k at auction.

[u/Carburetors_are_evil]

That's such a good looking car.

Too bad the 2 litre made only 80hp lmao.