My XM 2.1 TD Exclusive, in blue

[russ92xmsed]

It still surprises me the relative strength of XM sales in the early years, compared to the series two cars. Amazing citroen kept making RHD cars until the end of production.

Very simple and clever way of changing the Trevi design, and totally transforming it. How many beta saloons are left?

[casalingua]

The Trevi looks rather smart to my eyes. From the rear three quarter it has a purposeful stance. I test drove a Kappe coupe and regret that I didn't buy it. I've subsequently revisited the saloon at several dealers and I can't really warm to it. At least here in Denmark the cars weather badly and the Alcantara looks tatty. The 164 and 166 from Alfa seem to endure more convincingly. I think the Kappa needed to be a bit more convincingly styled. If they wanted to be so very understated the detailing and finish ought to have been much better than it was. There was no way a Scorpio or Omega buyer was going to choose one, let alone a 5 buyer. That was all a pity as I love the Lancia ideal.

[Gallic oddity]

Crikey so many questions and I haven't even had a chance to read your Trevi article yet

Worthy of Citroen that one. Is that what they call the 'Swiss Cheese' dash?

A motoring hack did give it the 'swiss cheese' comment, as it's like Gruyère

It could have looked quite good in a BX or GS. Brilliant piece of design.

It's not so clever to live with though... The (squeeky) button you press will make a light show (with weak illumination due to the the use of optics) at the other side of the dash grid!

How many beta saloons are left?

This is where the DVLA figures go awry. The club knows of around 30, of which 12 are on the road. The shocker is that for 1977, Lancia sales in the UK outsold BMW....

[casalingua]

Clots. Lancia had massive potential. In 1980 it was by no means inevitable that BMW was going to be the force it became or that Audi would be the third big brand. I like to imagine it could have been Peugeot but they dropped the ball with the 604 and got distracted by small cars with the 205. Lancia lost the chance to rival Mercedes and BMW with the decision to go front drive with the Beta and continued on the wrong track with the 4 cylinder Gamma. Incidentally, for a very learned discussion of Lancia take a look at
Carmagazine.co.uk and enter "Lancia 2006" into the site search engine.
http://www.carmagazine.co.uk/Community/ ... ic-id=6741

[casalingua]

You can tell I'm fascinated with Lancia!

[CitroJim]

You can tell I'm fascinated with Lancia!

I'm fascinated with the history of the car in general so such articles are like gold for me

It was a crying shame the Beta garnered itself such a terrible reputation in the UK as it was otherwise seen to be an excellent car. I can remember well the wild hoo-haa over its propensity to rust and how once the car had received a mauling and bad name at the hands of the hysterical press it was game over as it seems once a car has a reputation, that's it for good however hard the manufacturer tries to solve the problem that caused the outburst in the first place and however good the second generation is.

We've seen it with the XM and with the Maxi (cable gearchange for example) and several others.

It's a cruel world.

Alfa 166. Now I have an itch to have one of those... I like Alfas a lot... Even some of the new ones.

[russ92xmsed]

Alfa 164 for me. Now that's a tasty car!

It was very unfair what the press did to the Beta. Didn't they sort out the rust though and later ones were much better? Too late by then though.

[XMX]

You can tell I'm fascinated with Lancia!

My ex had a Fulvia 1.3 S2 Coupe in a Dark Brown colour, but when the body started to get the dreaded 'Tin-worm'

We decided it was best to sell whilst it was still worth something, awesome looking car with amazing acceleration and top speed from the small 1.3 V4 engine and with a super exhaust note too

Back on Topic , welcome to the XM forum 'Gallic oddity' nice looking Exclusive you bought !



XMX

.

[captainhaddock]

I had almost forgotten about those Lancia models...they were nice. Lancia isn't sold in Ireland, are they in the UK? I like Lancia's and saw some new model abroad that I've never figured out yet. Somehow I think they don't make RHD models...such a shame.
Anyway, good luck with your blue one, I am big time into blue ones at the moment as well!

[russ92xmsed]

Well technically Jaap, Lancias are sold over here...just not branded as Lancia...we get Chryslers. We lost Lancia in 1993/4. So missed out on the kappa.

So because of Fiat buying up Chrysler, they have done a deal to prop up Lancia and give a bit of quality to Chrysler. so what we have ended up with is real Lancia models lower end ....Delta and Ypsilon, and proper Chryslers upper end..300C / Thema, Voyager people carrier, and fulvia or flavia convertible, which i think is a sebring?....confusing I know.

Typical badge engineering!