Lancia Beta Forum

Dear all,

I'm back writing in this forum after a very long absence. My Lancia Beta Coupe 1.6 (S4 - 1981) has been on the shelf for 8 long years. I bought it in 2010. After modyfing and fixing it with a friend mechanic and driving it for about 4 years, in 2013 I lost a front wheel in a city roundabout, luckily no damage at all to person and properties, and at that precise point I decide that the car was not going back to the road till I would have been able to get her a proper complete restoration.

In this last 8 years I collected money, ideas and researched for a place that could perform a professional restomod. Finally in February this year I found what I was looking for, Antonelli Motorservice in Bologna. The owner, Fausto Antonelli, has a spectacular Coupe VX wich he is personally restoring and modifing (you can see picture of it around in facebook Beta groups). In March i decided to pull the trigger and I sent the car to Bologna.

Main principle behind the restomod will be weight saving (hence the Superleggera echoing Top Gear), street driveability and as much as possible a factory looking.

For the engine we will reamin faithfull to natural aspiration, adopt fuel injection, increase capacity to 2L thanks to a 2L crankshaft and high CR forged pistons. Objective is to have an engine with good lowdown torque, around 150-160hp and rev limit at 7000 rpm.

List of modification will be very long, so I will update with photos and specs as the works will go on.

Let's begin.

Alberto

Here some picture of the awakening of the car, arrival in the workshop and weighing of the car (we start from 1008 kg). You can see also the white Coupe VX of Fausto.

The disassembly has gone smoothly with no negative surprises. Rust situation exceptionally good with only some isolated points, the biggest on the the bottom right corner of the windshield sill.

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During the disassembly all the original and quite heavy bituminous sound assorbing material has been removed and will be substitute with a ligther one.

Then the body paint has been fully stripped and the pictures show how the car is at the moment.

Next step is galvanic treatment and new paint. Choice of color has taken me quite a lot of time, at the end I decided to go for Blu Lagos.

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This looks like a fantastic car being done properly with so little rust to repair compared to cars here.

Well done

Eric

That body shell really is in amazing condition.....

I'm also partially surpised on how good are the conditions of the shell. The car has always well kept in garage even before i bought it but nonetheless I was ready to have some suprises that luckily did not show up.

Climate conditions have a big impact in the fact that Betas in UK has so many problems with rust. In Italy the Beta is known as a car that might have some issues with rust but does not have at all such as an infamous reputation as the one it has in UK. It was not a car engineered for the rain even though it is brilliant to drive in the rain.

I've dreamt of a shell like that but always wake up to reality!

A wonderful body shell to start an interesting project.
I look forward to your progress updates.

The VX coupe in white with integrale wheels looks superb. Complimenti.

‘In bocca a lupo’

Ian

@squiglyzigly: crepi il lupo!

While the shell it's at the body shop for priming and painting, I made some shopping on Ebay.

A set of restored 2-pieces modular Gotti rims from 1978. Measure 14"x6".

And a pair of Recaro seats to reupholster from a Lancia Delta integrale.

Hi

What colour are you aiming to paint the car?

Also with the wheels will you need wing extensions or will they fit within the existing wings?

Also you originally had twin carbs, just curious what they were (dual dcnf?).

Looks a great project.

Peter

Those Gotti rims look sublime and will fit nicely. Evo seats and a ready supply of Alcantara in Italy will look good inside.
Sono già geloso

Hi @peteracs

The choice of the color has literally taken me months. I've gone through countless options from palettes of different automakers, always looking at the period late 70s, 80s and early 90s. At the end I decided to stay inside Lancia palette and go for the rare Blu Lagos. Got convinced after seeing the photos of a 037 stradale resprayed in this color.

On paper the Gotti rims should fit nicely without the need of wing extension but yet to try for real. Actually I think they might even go with 10mm or 15mm spacers. Let's see.

Regarding the carbs you spotted right, it was fitted with dual DCNF on a Mangoletsi mainfold with Pipercross dome filter. Still have them and planning to sell soon.

Hi

Thanks for the reply. Blu Lagos is a stunning colour and should go well with the gold in the wheels. I am one of those who struggles to find any wheels which suit the Coupe etc better than the original alloys, so will be interesting to see them on the car.

I think the dual dcnf carb or throttle body solution is also a neat one as it makes routing the cooler air to them easier than the side draught solution.

On the rims that is an interesting comment as I would have expected them to be right on the edge of the wing assuming they have the same offset as standard ones?

Peter

Hi @peteracs

I totally agree with you, to choose different rims for the Beta Coupe it's a complicate task given how well the original ones fit with the overal design of the car. I hope that this Gotti wheels will prove to be a lucky strike as they looks definetely more sporty but yet retain an overal design and feeling not too dissimilar to the original Beta rims. I'm really curious to see them fitted to the car.

Regarding the spacers, I used to have fitted 10mm spacers front and back with the original rims and still they were staying confortably inside the standard arch limits. Actually in the back there was still quite a lot of space, at least 10mm, the front instead is tighter. I do not know exactly the offset of this but shouldn't be to far off the original. And even if it goes in the region of 20-25 I know that there should be still enough room to accomodate them inside the original arches. Hope I'm right because I have never been a fan of wing extensions on the beta, neither the small nor the huge gr.4 ones.

Progressing with the preparation of the shell for painting. By the end of the month paint should be done and reassembly can start.

more pictures

What a great project, and those Gotti rims are fantastic!

You are a lucky man Alberto - there are not many (maybe none!) garages in the UK which have the specialist knowledge to completely restore / restomod a car like the Beta Coupe all under one roof. 
Your car looks in excellent condition and I suppose has spent much of it's life in dry, sunny conditions?  Looking forward to seeing your progress and the finished car. Buona Fortuna!

Dear all, happy new year everyone.

December has been a slow month regarding the works on the Beta but steady progress has been made.

Engine is now completely dismantled and a lot of parts has gone for sndblasting, galvanization and repaint. But more importantly all the preparatory works on the shell has been finally ultimated and the underbody has been painted. We decided to go for black for the floor, in order to have a more resistant paint and protective layer, while for the rest we kept the plan A and go for Blue Lagos.

Other new parts that we decided to go for is carbon front and rear bonnets, with carbon-kevlar finishing on the inside and painted on the outside, using the originals bonnets to create the molds.

and here the painted underbody

fully restored front axles and rear calipers

And here the carbon rear bonnet yet to be finished. Planning to do in the same way also bumpers, rear spoiler and VX stile one piece front spoiler.

Hi

Looks fabulous! Is the mould suitable to produce more than one bonnet and if so would they be reasonably affordable?

Thanks

Peter

Fantastic work and I would love to know how much lighter the carbon fiber parts are?

Thank you

Eric

@WestonE the weights of the original bonnets are 19kg for the front  one and 12.2kg for the back one. For the carbon ones we expect to be around 4kg for the front and 3kg for the back. Once they will be finished I will share with you all the exact weights.

@peteracs the mold are reusable and the front one has been made out of a VX bonnet so it's possible to have the front bonnet both with and without the bulge (mine will be without). Price for the moment is quite high as we made only two copies (one for my car and one for the white VX of Fausto) but the quality of the product is really high. They are an exact copy of the original ones with all the details and internal ribs and intended to be completely plug and play. We did not aim to have the maximum weight saving as they are intended for street use so durability and toughness are also important parameters. To produce them we contacted a company that it's currently producing carbon parts for the Ferrari F1 team. Once they will be finished I will share with you more details and photos; and if people are interested on them we can maybe setup a group buy as the price will obviously scale down if more are produced at once.

Toghether with the rear bonnet we are reproducing also the rear spoiler in carbon fiber. Based on the original shape we decided to go for an increase of 2cm in height. This led to a slightly revised filleting. The places for the badges will be mantained in the same position. In the pictures the comparison of the original shape in black and the new on in white.

and here it is, Blue Lagos!

Beautiful work

Superb.
I would love to have a spray booth like that. The lighting is excellent and shows the lines beautifully.

Top class


Ian

Some updates after quite a lot of time.

Re-assembly has slowly started and soon I will have more pictures and details to share.

For now some pictures of the front and rear carbon fiber bonnets that finally arrived. Internal finish is carbon-kevlar, externally will be painted in blue lagos. The enlarged rear spoiler will be exposed carbon.

Details of the internal surface

Fantastic work. Will you paint these?

Yes, on the external surface both the front and the rear bonnets will be finished in the same Blue Lagos of the rest of the body.

The internal surface instead will be karbon kevalr as in the picture. The rear spoiler will be polished unpainted exposed carbon.

This project looks amazing already but I am guessing that the carbon fibre work alone cost more than my Spyder is worth! 
The Blue is a great choice too!  What are your plans for the engine?  VX?
Looking forward to seeing more.  8)

@unclejam they are expensive indeed. We did a batch of two rear and two front bonnets (one vx style, one normal style). For me the price of one front + one rear with the enlarged spoiler + painting will be 4K euro.

For the engine the plan is naturally aspirated, modern fuel injection, specifically designed forged high cr pistons and con rod. Aiming 150 hp and tuned for street use and drivability.

New update. Works are progressing slowly but steadely.

Front sub-frame and front and rear suspension has been fully restored and mounted. We kept the original suspension struts (galvanized finish instead of black paint as in origin) and the lowered and uprated betaboyz springs and spax inserts already installed, but we partially discharged the spax insert as even on the softer setting they were definitely too hard for a street oriented setup.

 

more pictures

some more

And here some pictures of the fully restored steering racks and steering linkages

Beautiful work

Hi

Looks beautifully restored. A quick question did you restore the top mount bearing, if so how and you used what?

Peter

Fantastic! No power steering?

Right, no powersteering. I decided to keep the original steering rack and just restore it. Hopefully I will not regret it but I always liked the feedback of the steering of the Beta without powersteering and I decided to stick to it...and also less weight and less things that can leak :)

I'm also interested in this. Did you fit new steering bearings to the top mounts?

Regards
Nigel

@Nigel and peteracs the top mounts has been fully cleaned and galvanized. As far as I know, top steering bearings as far as I know has not been changed but only cleaned and greased. I will check with Fausto regarding this ones as I'm not 100% sure.