Lancia Beta (1982) – Into the Wild

In the 1970s, various car manufacturers messed around a bit with body shapes. The hatchback was growing, but at the same time they wanted to stick to sedans. This often led to special events, especially in the middle class. Consider, for example, the first Volkswagen Passat, which had both a traditional boot lid and a hatchback lid. Or the Citroen GS, which started life as a four-door sedan and later became a five-door as the GSA. And the ‘small’, Fiat 127 and Peugeot 104 immediately come to mind in that regard.

The Lancia Beta Berlina, which looks a bit like a GS from the rear, made it easier. It was from the beginning (as the name said) a sedan and would remain so throughout its existence. If you wanted a big backdoor, you were relying on Beta HPE. For serious enthusiasts, there was the Lancia Beta Spider and then there was also its sibling the Beta Coupé. On the threshold of the 1980s, another version was added: Trevi. A sedan whose classic shape also made it impossible to miss that it was a sedan, unlike the Beta Berlina, which finally transferred the sedan baton entirely to the Trevi.

Lancia beta.

The entire Beta range has already been covered in this section, except for this Lancia Beta Berlina. Thanks to AutoWeek forum member Afentoe, that will change today. And he didn’t just see the copy, let’s say. Beta shines beautifully in the spring sun. As Afentoe himself points out, it appears that Beta was just cleaning itself when these photos were taken. Unfortunately, there would be some visible parts where the Beta looks a little less nice, but if you already have a Beta in the wild, it doesn’t get much neater than this. We are dealing with a very ‘late’ copy here, because it was registered in January 1982, so just one year after production of the Beta Berlina was stopped. That it is too late, you can see, among other things, with the nose of the Trevi, which in our opinion resembled the Berlina strangely.

This amazing colored beta has been in the Netherlands since 2009 and since then it has had two owners for a short period of time. Now he is with the third, who holds for a long time. Already 13 years ago the two came together and it seems that he still treats Beta with love. A baby seat in the back seat is probably a sign of normal action. That’s how we like it!