(first posted 7/7/2017) One of the more readily forgotten chapters of the 70s was Lancia’s push for a share of the lower-premium import market. Lancias had of course been imported since the 1950s, but were always a relatively expensive rarity, which was in keeping with their exceptional engineering and quality. But after Fiat acquired (read: rescued) Lancia, it naturally had to rationalize what had been a very un-rational operation. That meant Lancias that shared as much as possible with Fiat.
The Beta was the most important result of that, and the Beta Montecarlo (spelled as one word) mid-engined sports car actually started out as a Fiat project, the X 1/20, a larger version of the X 1/9. But the project was given to Lancia to round out its Beta sedan and coupe program, and made for a quite interesting and capable new entrant in the market. Veteran driver/reviewer Paul Frére tested it in Europe ahead of its US introduction in the fall of 1975. And its name had to be changed to Scorpion at the last minute, as it was clearly stepping on Chevrolet’s turf. And along with the name change came a number of other unfortunate changes that drastically dimmed its prospects in the US.
Pininfarina was not only responsible for the Montecarlo’s styling, but developed the whole car from scratch under a contract with Fiat, and built it wholly too, a first for Pininfarina. As such, it shared very little with the other members of the Beta family.
The Monte Carlo/Scorpion had a lot of positives: a handsome design by Pininfarina, a five speed stick, and terrific handling. Unfortunately, because of the US emission standards, the US-market Scorpion came with a severely-emasculated 81 hp 1756 cc engine instead of the quite lively 2 liter four as tested here. That put a crimp on its appeal and success. And since the suspension had to be jacked up to meet bumper regulations, its handling was also compromised. US-spec headlights meant the clean front end had to be ruined. An issue with overly-boosted brakes led to criticism and the Montecarlo/Scorpion was withdrawn from the market in 1979 and re-launched in 1980. But by 1981, it was all over.
Rust was a major issue on the cars too, and has led to a low survivor rate. It’s been quite a while since i saw one, although they were not uncommon in California at the time.
A promising start, as documented here, turned out to be a pretty major failure.
Thanx for info on one I never knew existed .
Looks good, too bad it failed .
-Nate
Great idea behind the car, but very similar with Porsche/VW and the 914. In both cases, the lower cost marque developed most of the car, and it never got much in the way of sales for either this car or the 914. Neither sold in any real volume. You have to wonder, would this car have sold better had it been sold as a Fiat? Would the 914 sold more as a VW? We pay more for Lancias, and hold them more dear than any Fiat, and the 914, being a Porsche, has the cache 40 years on. Oddly, both would be worth less now had they originally been sold that way, but you might have seen more of them sold and around today had they been badged as top of the line cars for either Fiat or VW.
Actually, the 914 sold quite well. And in Europe it was sold as a VW.
In Europe it was sold as a VW-Porsche.
Correct, it did sell well, and my wording was “sold more” because of that fact. It may have sold even more had it been marketed as a sporty VW rather than as a budget Porsche. People are funny in how they perceive value, and a low-priced luxury item does not have the perceived value as an identically priced top of the line non-luxury item. Had VW sold the 914 as their own, leaving Porsche out of the mix, it well may have sold more units, and without requiring the 6 and its associated costs. Same here if the car of the article had come out as the Fiat X20, or whatever they wished to name it, and been the top of the line Fiat sport model. Lower expectations for a Fiat over a Lancia, and probably a better take rate.
I’d always heard that while the 914 sold fairly well in the U.S., that it was considered a disappointment in Europe, although supposedly part of the reason was that there was a certain stigma associated with it being sold as a Volkswagen-Porsche.
Was this not the car Herbie fell for in “Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo?”
So it is, I don’t think I’ve ever seen one in person.
I haven’t watched Monte Carlo since I was 10. I assume that like every Herbie sequel it does not live up to the standards of film making excellence set by the original.
Somehow the 1960’s cheesiness aged the best over the years…
It is indeed. The driver refers to it as her “Lawn-cha”
Yup, that’s correct if you’re Italian. If I remember correctly, it was originally planned to be a Fiat X1/20. Big brother to the X1/9
I have a thing for Lancia, having grown up with a pair of Aurelias sitting around my fathers repair shop, wish I had those Aurelia’s now.
Fiat recently tried to merge Lancia & Chrysler brands in europe, and while it made sense on paper, it didn’t work out so well. The lineup was pretty interesting from about 2010-2012.
Lancia Ypsilon (current Ypsilon)
Lancia Delta (sweet C/D segment hatch seen in Angels & Demons movie)
Lancia Thema (rebadged Chrysler 300)
Lancia Flavia convert. (Chry 200 convert)
Lancia Voyager (Chrysler T&C).
The entire lineup was branded as Chryslers (with the exception of the Flavia) in the UK.
Jeez. I cannot even fathom a 200 Convertible badged as a Lancia Flavia. That’s practically Twilight Zone material.
So did Barnie Fife
This is another that I have never been familiar with.
I may be in the minority here (like that’s never happened 🙂 ) but this car represents everything wrong with 70s European styling. Where America descended into broughamistic hell, the Europeans went into some kind of brutalistic mode. Where Italian design of the 50s had been about beauty, Italian design of the 70s became all about sharp edges, hard lines and angles and hunks of black stuff placed everywhere.
I realize that many will consider this car attractive, but I do not for the same reason I don’t find all of those blocky bare concrete buildings of the same era attractive. Functional and modern (for the time), yes. Attractive or even beautiful? No.
‘ Where Italian design of the 50s had been about beauty, Italian design of the 70s became all about sharp edges, hard lines and angles and hunks of black stuff placed everywhere.’
I can’t say it’s exclusive to Italian cars, but we see the same thing with American and European cars in the second half of 1970s. Cadillac started with its 1975 Seville, which preciperated a paradigm shift in design language amongst General Motors passenger cars.
In addition, back-to-back oil crisises in the 1970s drove many manufacturers to seek lighter weight, more compact size, and better aerodynamic as to reduce the fuel consumption. Plastic and rubber came naturally as lighter material. They are easier to form and less energy intensive to manufacture than metal components.
‘ Where Italian design of the 50s had been about beauty, Italian design of the 70s became all about sharp edges, hard lines and angles and hunks of black stuff placed everywhere.’
It’s a shame when volume GM products of the day (Monza, Vega, Camaro) looked more “Italian” than the real Italian cars!
But then they did interiors like this! Lancia Trevi…
That Trevi interior is slowly becoming the greatest car dashboard design of all time
I saw one of these in the early 90s when I lived in Memphis. It was sitting outside a grocery store in one of the more…cosmopolitan sections of town. Aside from seeing that inexpensive exotic sitting at the curb, waiting to haul it’s owner and a load of groceries home, what was more surprising was that I don’t remember ever seeing an X1/9 or any Alfas during my time in Memphis.
This car would give me nightmares of typical 1970’s Italian auto ownership in North America….. fragile components, breakdowns, long wait for parts to arrive from mysterious places, only to be installed by backwoods mechanics who just learned about overhead cams last week….. all combined with catastrophic depreciation.
Auto journalists , especially R&T had the luxury of reviewing cars without a moments recognition about the cost or anguish about actually living with one. The competing cars in the article were not much better, although at least the 914 had familiar Bettle-esque engineering behind it.
Uhh, these SEEMED to sell, like other Fiats, in large cities so while there was the possibility of breakdowns in less than ideal locations…my experience has been that mechanics everywhere will pretend/bluff about even simple auto repair skills…if they can pull it off.
I drove a 15 year old TR3 1100 miles, with no tools, minimal advanced preparation and managed to make it to my destination without stopping for anything other than gas.
A subsequent road test by Road & Track about the US-market version made a big fuss about how slow it was with that pathetic 81 hp.
Got to briefly drive one “back in the day.” A friend’s uncle was a bigwig with Fiat in the US, and showed up with a Scorpion. It was a thrilling opportunity for me… my usual drive was my Mom’s ’68 Country Squire (more often my Raleigh10-speed). Drove it for maybe 10 minutes. Handling was otherworldly by my standards. Oddly, my most clear recollection was the shift lever, which was so short it seemed to just be a ball sitting on a tiny boot.
A little Period Perspective…
Having been a regular subscriber to R&T throughout the 70s, I was aware of the model and their road tests of it. I was to later get some firsthand exposure to one, though I’ve yet to drive a Scorpion__not holding my breath for that!
We had one of these come into the shop I worked at, Austin-Healey West, in San Francisco; I only worked there the last quarter of 1978 through the end of ’79, so that Scorpion could’ve only been 2-3 years old at best.
My memory is hazy about the details, and I’ll explain why. Pretty sure it came in__on the end of a hook__because the cam belt broke or jumped. I think the estimate included the replacement of several valves, plus resultant machine shop work, gaskets, etc. Seems it also needed a lot of brake work, and there were electrical issues requiring attention.
In the end, I never worked on the car, it just sat with other dead/abandoned cars in the back of the shop, presumably being deemed not cost-effective to repair. This, on a car only a few years old, with a body and interior certainly in otherwise good overall condition. Consequently, I was never a fan of the car.
So you see, some of them never even got the chance to rust out!
This is a perfect summary of the way I’ve viewed these, as often as I’ve ever really thought of them at all. They were few and far between on the East Coast, but I remember being a bit fascinated by them when I was a kid. Several times while on late night Ebay perusals I’ve come across Lancias of this vintage designated as “Barn Finds”, having been put out to pasture for one reason of another back in the late 70’s or early ’80’s. It was never really mysterious to me why they’d have been put on mothballs 35 years ago and not bothered with since.
With all due respect for the marque, I just can’t see how this car could have been considered a step up from the X1/9. It’s heavier, more clumsily styled and a bit overwrought by comparison to my eye, but to each his own. Obviously in US spec it was a non-starter (pun not really intended).
Yes, interference engines are very unforgiving in respect to broken time by belts. These motors – and the SOHC in the X1/9 – were pretty durable if you just followed recommended maintenance. And the cars also weren’t encumbered by Lucas Electrics, the Achilles Heel of British cars.
Interesting reference to British electrics as the worst there has ever been, here we used to moan about Italian electrics in those days
I had a 75 Cadillac Eldorado convertible, that would be around 1997, a daft thing to own in the UK but had to get it out of my system, The power seat mechanism solenoids had burnt out and the switches broke, salvaged them by using parts from a later GM car, but was very unimpressed with American electrics and see no superiority there.
Most people back then simply did not know how to diagnose or fix electrical problems. In retrospect, the Japanese were the ones who sorted that area and raised expectations
Then or now Lee ;
My skills at electrical diagnosis and repair on older vehicles (esp. LBC’s) remain in great demand, I even wrote DIY How -To Technical guides for various Clubs .
-Nate
It was still conventional wisdom of a lot of Americans in the mid 1970s to avoid gadgets like electric windows and seats and locks because “it’s just one more thing to break.” Unless you were the kind of person who traded cars every two or three years, those electric accessories would eventually fail on you. So it does not surprise me that a 20 year old Cadillac would be suffering from electrical glitches. But as garish as a 75 Eldorado was here in the States, I bet that car stood out in the UK!
Just remembering the various road reports of the time, both US and European/UK testers reported scary spin-out tendencies when braking in the wet, a problem that the X1-9 did not have. Since it was some Brits who brought it to my attention first, it could not have had any connection to our government-imposed suspension fiddling.
Even without the later emasculation of the engine, though, 114 hp out of two liters was not exactly stunning even then. I can say with some confidence that if offered perfect examples of this and an X1-9 at the same price it would be no contest. Okay, at ANY price!
Yes, unfortunately whereas the Montecarlo debuted in Europe with a reasonably potent ~120 HP 2-liter, they only had a detuned and smog-choked 1800 version certified (from other Fiat and Lancia US models) for US/Cali emissions compliance at the time, making a woeful 81 HP. Luckily, these Lampredi twincam engine respond very well to tuning, especially when rebuilt with higher-compression pistons that can take good advantage of hotter cams, dual Weber carbs, etc.
As to those scary braking tendencies you mentioned, the initial series of Montecarlos and Scorpions were inexplicably equipped with vacuum-boosted power disc brakes only in front, leaving the rear discs unboosted. Amazingly, this bizarre setup wasn’t just a matter of being too cheap or can’t-be-arsed to engineer a fully-boosted system; rather, we can infer it was quite deliberate, as they engineered a rather byzantine system to accomplish this, diagrammed here:
https://www.lanciamontecarlo.net/images/brake_circuit.gif
With the engine, fuel tank, and spare tire all in the rear, the front wheels didn’t have much weight keeping them planted, allowing those power front brakes to lock up a bit too readily when driven in anger in the wet or when road traction was otherwise marginal, which the motoring press made great sport of, perhaps more than was likely to actually affect most owners day-to-day.
Fortunately, it’s a fairly simple matter to bypass the vacuum boost if one is so inclined (The Monte Hospital offers a ready-made kit for it), and X1/9 brake upgrades such as the popular Whoa! Brakes retrofit kit using Wilwood calipers are an easy nut’n’bolt swap. Second-series Montecarlos omitted the brake booster entirely and upgraded to larger 14″ wheels allowing for larger discs, though the US Scorpion variant sadly would not resume production by that time.
There are several excellent examples of the Scorpion running around in NorCal, two of the best owned by a guy in Shingle Springs (also an X1/9 aficionado) one is a black one with the double bubble MonteCarlo roof. That car is to drool over, it is so perfect. These – when “enhanced” and sorted – are excellent sports cars.
Although I can’t seem to find a picture of it, a Lancia Beta showed up at one of our local Italian car club meetings a few months ago, and I was quite impressed with it. The owner had modified it to European Monte Carlo specification, and had replaced the Lancia engine with an Alfa Busso V-6 with roughly 200 horsepower. In a 2300 pound car, performance was brisk, and I enjoyed the brief ride I got in it. In its European trim, the car looked quite good to my eyes, although I’m probably biased.
The only thing that spoiled my impression was that I earned my ride as a thank you for helping to push start the car when it was having a typical Italian sulk.
Actually got my fanny into a 70s Beta coupe ages ago. A rather sad example sitting in the used lot of the Ford dealer in Kalamazoo. I remember how the varnish was flaking off of the wood shifter knob and the molding around the inner side of the passenger door opening was coming adrift, at one point held in place by a length of wire.
Now all that is left of Lancia is the Ypsilon, selling a paltry 5,000/month. With Fiat going cheap and Afla going Jag wannabe/poor man’s Maserati, even I can’t think of a scenario to save Lancia.
With my well known wagon fetish, I always found the Beta HPE quite attractive.
Lancia turned the Monte Carlo into the 037 Endurance racer, rally car , hill climb car and road car.
In fact it dominated racing.
Even beat Porsche at Le Mans.
Won a a few WRC year with the 037 rally car.
The engineering is very clever to say the least and it is still an incredibly beautiful car , in it’s time haute couture.
Every bit a Lancia!!
Busso engine is 230 bhp in it’s base form.
Top end performance is where it all is, brisk performance is an understatement..
Side opening goods were common at one point, what was the last one made?
Make that hoods not goods
That last shot in the article of the rear/side reminds me of a squashed later model Fiero GT.
My mechanic’s shop partner picked up an X 1/9 recently and is (eventually) going to drop an MR2 motor in it. Can’t wait to see how that works out.
My prediction is that after it drives out the door he’ll be left with a MR2 body and an X 1/9 engine?
Slotting Honda B16 VTEC engines into X1/9s is a favourite South African passtime. Light weight, RWD traction – they make excellent little dragsters, especially when the guys strap big turbos onto the Honda mills…
Suddenly, it’s 1980. The exterior styling and dash, could have been released in the early 1980s, and still looked modern. More accurately predicted 1980 design, than the Pacer. lol Forward of the A-pillar, I see a resemblance to the Delorean. And the C-pillar perhaps inspired the early ’80s Charger/Shelby Charger/Turismo rear roof treatment. Alloy wheels would have looked fresh, a decade later. Perhaps helped inspire the design of the TRX wheels?
The blackout trim was at least a year or two ahead, of the popular trend. Design would have been cleaner without the mini vent-style windows at the door fronts.The broad black bodyside trim says 1983. Not 1975.
Looks fresher than any 1975 domestic cars.
If for no other reason, impressive for representing future design trends, well before they became mainstream.
Then current GM cars like the Monza and Camaro, looked like Italian cars of the 1960s. The excessive angularity, is where they missed trendsetting future design here. The 1992 Seville almost a dead ringer for the 1980 Pininfarina-styled Pinin.
Did the Scorpion ever come back after FIAT sorted out the brakes? I’ve been under the impression that only the Montecarlo went back into production after they ditched the silly system of only boosting the front brakes on a car with large rear weight bias. Scorpions were all 1976 and 1977 models, while the Montecarlo went back into production after a break of more than a calendar year.
Alas, no. By the time the Series 2 Montecarlo entered production in 1980, omitting the half-boosted brakes but upgrading to 14″ wheels allowing room for larger discs, Fiat-Lancia had given up on offering the car in the US anymore, likely due to woeful sales figures and a lingering bad rap about the anemic emissions-nerfed engine.
The timing was also a bit off, as no Lancias at all were imported to the US for model year 1980, awaiting ramp-up of their new Bosch L-jet fuel injection system that debuted in some US Fiats for 1980 and all Fiats and Lancias for 1981. That FI system paired with a larger 2-liter engine (debuting for US Fiats and Lancias from ’79-on) would have mostly addressed the power issue, but ’81 was already the final year of Montecarlo production anyway.
We now know that Fiat-Lancia pulled out of the US market entirely after the ’82 model year, so we can infer by ’80-81 they were likely already feeling tentative about even remaining in the US market anymore, and focusing on their most iconic (Spider and X1/9) and volume-selling (131/Brava and Strada) models to see if their updated, more powerful and reliable injected engines would boost sales enough to justify continued imports at all. Resuming sales of a low-volume niche model with an already-iffy reputation like the Scorpion just had no place in that scenario.
They were trying pretty hard to promote the Lancia Beta Zagato at the time. There were lots of print ads and cars in test fleets for the magazines to review. It is too bad that they didn’t revive the Scorpion with the brakes fixed and 25% more power, but they didn’t. Malcolm Bricklin took over importing the 124/Spider 2000 and the X1/9, but he elected not to keep any cars that had been branded as Lancias.
Bricklin was able to do that because the Spider and X1/9 bodies were actually fabricated at Pininfarina and Bertone, respectively, which shipped them to Fiat factories for final assembly of the completed cars.
When Fiat canceled their production contracts with those coachbuilders after the 1982 model year, Bricklin negotiated his own contracts with them to continue production, with full assembly to be performed at the coachbuilders’ facilities instead of Fiat’s, and Fiat was willing to play along by selling and shipping over the powertrains and other running-gear components required for that.
Arguably, the Lancia Montecarlo made all this possible as a sort of “pilot program” for Pininfarina to learn how to develop and assemble entire cars at their end, not just bodies-in-white as before. Ultimately, Bricklin’s endeavor here came to an end when Pininfarina entered an agreement with GM to build the Cadillac Allanté, leaving them without sufficient capacity to continue building Spiders anymore.
These have a rather fascinating development history — in a nutshell:
Fiat wanted a replacement for their aging 124 Sport Coupe, so they solicited proposals from Pininfarina and Bertone, under Fiat internal development project codes X1/8 and X1/9 respectively. Bertone’s X1/9 proposal got approved, retaining its codename for the actual production model.
Pininfarina wasn’t ready to give up however, as their X1/8 bid had become a bit of a pet project for them, being their first attempt to fully design and develop an entire car (not just body shells) for in-house series production, aside from the powertrain and running gear to be provided by Fiat. Originally intended to have a 3-liter V6, this was scaled back to a 2-liter plan when the ’70s oil crisis hit, and the project was re-designated as X1/20.
Fiat had also recently acquired Carlo Abarth’s tuning/racing shop, which they tasked with developing a couple early prototype X1/20 bodyshells into racers to compete in the Giro d’Italia for promotional and “racing improves the breed” purposes. These became the Abarth 030, equipped with an Abarth-tuned version of the 3.2L V6 from the Fiat 130, mounted longitudinally to a ZF transaxle. One of these finished the competition second only to the mighty Lancia Stratos; the other 030 was a backup/display car and never raced. This project would continue, ultimately culminating in the Lancia Rally 037.
That racing effort aside, the series-production side of the X1/20 project was eventually transferred under Lancia’s wing, Fiat having saved that storied firm from looming oblivion in late 1969 by acquiring it for a token 1 Lira per share. As the X1/9 had proven the viability of putting a series-production transverse FWD powertrain (from the Fiat 128) into a rear-mid engine configuration, Fiat recognized they could do the same with the new Lancia Beta’s FWD powertrain for the X1/20 and thus market it as a Lancia, which would also justify other comfort, equipment, and refinement upgrades to better distinguish it from the X1/9 and position it upmarket for a more profitable price tag.
Ultimately, the production car debuted as the Lancia Beta Montecarlo, to lend some extra sporting cachet to the Lancia Beta line which provided its powertrain (though the rest of the running gear under the skin was mostly shared in common with the X1/9), and became the first series-production model to be fully manufactured to completion entirely in-house at Pininfarina, just as they’d hoped and planned for all along.
I’ve never seen this car (well, a “regular” Beta, not the Monte Carlo version) in person, but I remember well the magazine articles on it when it came out. I was in college, and liked the “idea” of cars like this a lot, and pretty idealistic (as a College Freshman) liked the looks of this a lot.
What saved me was my situation…as a Freshman, I didn’t have a regular job, and independent of how much I liked the car, wasn’t in any position to do anything about it (nor would I be for many years). Turns out the car I had, a Datsun 710, was probably about as good a bet for someone in my position at the time, as it was pretty conventional, mostly didn’t give me any issues, though it wasn’t good in snow (the Beta would have been much better, but darned if I’d subject it to salt and slush if I had one….was living in Vermont at the time, a commuter student.
Ten years later, I was in a position to get a car like this, and in fact was in the market for a car and did my most exhaustive work trying to figure out what kind of car I should get…didn’t just try multiple makes, but varying sizes and types, I took my time. I didn’t drive a Beta (don’t think they offered them anymore) but I did drive a Bertone X1/9 and a Toyota MR2 which aren’t that different from a Beta)…though I should have known it even without a test drive, I determined that cars like this weren’t for me (especially as an only car…I’ve only owned 1 car at a time with brief overlaps). They were just too non-compromising…only 1 other passenger, no real cargo space, just too small. I also test drove cars like an Alfa Romeo GT6, Mitsubishi Gallant, Mazda 626, Honda Accord, and Ford Taurus (wagon)….ended up buying a 1986 VW GTi. The Accord (couple) came in 2nd….I didn’t like the bundled option packages where I had to get an LXi to get fuel injection (didn’t like power windows back then).
I ‘ve since learned that cars like this are pretty exotic, and exotic costs money and particularly isn’t a good idea if it is your only car. Where would I get parts for it? I didn’t even think about it back then. But I learned a lot during that car search, basically figuring out what works best for me, which I’ve bought (with minor variations) since then. It doesn’t keep me from admiring them, but from afar. Daily driving is much more important to me than having a nice looking but not so practical car this probably would have been in practice. Maybe I should have known that before, but sometimes I’m a hard case.