When Fiat bought Lancia in 1969, it saved the company from bankruptcy, kept it Italian and soaked up debts thought to be totalling around 100billion lire. The Italian giant also inherited a workforce that was disillusioned and had lost key members of staff.
Nonetheless Sergio Camuffo, who was tasked with turning the ailing company around, convinced backbone workers to stay put and help him develop the new regime’s first car – the Beta.
The decision to make it came in 1970, but it wasn’t an easy brief. Fiat wanted the car ready for marketing within three years, record pace at the time.
Camuffo resisted taking the easy option of building a rebadged Fiat and set about creating a machine with its own distinct characteristics.
The first of these could be found in the powerplants. Lancia used Fiat’s twin-cam units, but they were heavily revised, with different castings, camshafts and manifolds to produce more power and extra torque lower down in the rev range.
The suspension was the next area to benefit from Camuffo’s eye for engineering. Fiat’s simple front-suspension design was scrapped in favour of MacPherson struts with their lower wishbones fitted to the front subframes.
The rear was granted the same consideration. Its independent layout was simple yet effective. In fact, the design was so accomplished that it was used in Themas into the ’90s and was even copied by the Japanese after Camuffo neglected to patent it.
When the car was launched, on time, at the Turin motor show in 1972 it came fitted with all-round disc brakes and optional power-assisted steering.
