Rust

[Per]

This may be old hat to some forum members, but it was new to me and I had a couple of Betas in the early / mid eighties. From a (then) Lancia dealer i got a bit more info. The bulkhead on the Mk 1 saloons was different from the Coupe/HPE/Spider, and it was affected much worse by structurally dangerous rust. So Lancia inspected them and if MOT failures bought them back and scrapped them. I had imagined it was the interest factor that had secured the relatively speaking higher survival rate if coupes etc compared to saloons but it was also the actual difference in how th rust affected the cars.

[rossocorsa]

I believe that in the UK many coupés and spiders were also bought back by lancia, despite quite high sales in the UK it is therefore very noticeable that there are far more later series cars surviving with series one cars of all types barely in existence and even series two pre facelift very thin on the ground. The pre s2fl but post s1 cars whilst not having subframe issues suffered badly with corrosion in the front wings/wheel staff area due to the lack of liners.

[Andyt]

Not to mention the Russian steel used by the Fiat Group.......

[skidmarc]

and seam sealer to all panel joints.all 1970s car were badly built but the lancia beta was built very strong going by the amount of spot welds that i have uncovered   that they were built strongly but lacking in seam sealer to all the joints that needed it