Lancia Scorpian- Waddle You Know?

In reply to integraguy:

That's retarded.

I know several people who have/had owned Scorpions and there are no cases of death due to crazy handling. These aren't complicated cars. Same basic strut setup as used on X1/9's.

integraguy wrote: I just found another REALLY good reason why you should be glad you didn't get this car... The Lancia Scorpion, was temporary taken out of production in 1978 as the first cars were considered to be quite dangerous handling. Production resumed after about a year, year and a half, with a revised suspension setup. And to quote a Sports Car and Classics buyers guide: "....AVOID U.S. only Scorpions with 1800 engines and 80bhp."

Sounds a lot like the SW20 MR2's - 91-92 had "dangerous handling", so they softened it up and took all the life out of the car. Ironic how 91-92's are the sought after ones for their suspension design.

I'm still hung up on that "70s euro POS" comment. I must be a slow learner. And those are only the ones I have images uploaded of. Yeah, they were all horrible (insert sarcasm emoticon here)

Yeah, the '70's were loaded with POS's on both sides of both ponds. Which explains the thriving business in restoration parts for German, British, Italian, Japanese and American cars of the era.

I guess it also explains all those car shows for them, and the ridiculously high auction prices, etc.

At the time they were built, those European, British, Italian, Japanese and American POS's were cutting, excuse me, bleeding edge compared to many other manufacturers. Context, my good man oldskewltoy, context.

brake bias was the issue. In the us the front brakes were vacuum assist.. Not too bad in the dry, but the wet the light front end would lock easily.

the revised monte had no booster

interesting note: japanese montes had boost on the rear brakes

Jensenman wrote: Yeah, the '70's were loaded with POS's on both sides of both ponds. Which explains the thriving business in restoration parts for German, British, Italian, Japanese and American cars of the era. I guess it also explains all those car shows for them, and the ridiculously high auction prices, etc. At the time they were built, those European, British, Italian, Japanese and American POS's were cutting, excuse me, bleeding edge compared to many other manufacturers. Context, my good man oldskewltoy, context.

hahahahaha... nostaglia.... it's a lot like sex

not that anyone cares....

My Euro exp... I've owned a 72 GTV 2000, I've owned 3 Volvo 1800's, 2 122S, 142S, and a TVR

(I've also owned 2 Shelby Mustangs 66 & 67, and a 70 Mach1 428SCJ)

Besides owning a few, I wrenched on many others @ a dealer(B&L dealer on route 10 in NJ), and a few independent shops. I was wrenched for British Leyland during the late 1970's when EVERY brand new BL car required a complete going over with a torque wrench because build quality was just CRAP!! I was wrenching on 911s as they rotted in front of your eyes!

So, those of you who are "upset" with me... grow up, I have enough experience to know Euro cars are GREAT... when they run correctly(about 5% of the time), Jap cars runn nearly as great as the Euro stuff... but it runs that well 85% of the time....

Give me a Euro car that runs correctly 85% of the time... make it light, nimble, and EASY to repair... I'll buy one.

Let me put this another way.... we just sold an IS300 Sport Cross with 85k miles so we could get a mint, nearly flawless AE86... its light, nimble, and easy to repair

ALL cars rusted horribly back then. You can't pick on one continent when it comes to body rot.

If you're basing most of your comments on BL products, then I can see where the bias comes from. Build quality was horrid. Engineering, however, wasn't always bad. They did have some brilliant designs (though Triumph head gaskets wouldn't be one of them).

Easy to work on: Volvos, yes. Saabs, so-so. Fiats, yes and no. Alfas, not too bad. BMWs, easy. VWs, easy. Domestic cars, sort of easy if you could find the engine under all the vacuum lines. Japanese cars, didn't often break but were generally so uninspiring they didn't enter my driveway.

Funny.. all the 70s eurocrap I owned.. while never running 100% (I learned that if you left something broken, nothing else would break..) they always seemed to run at 90% 90% of the time.

Body rot was bad at that time.. does not matter where the tin came from, the worm loved them all. Aside from BL with it's strikes and general malaise towards actually building cars.. you have to remember that in 70s car makers were dealing with radically changing tastes, higher expectations of what a car should be, increasing safety requirements, and stricter emissions.. it was bad for everyone

I spent my formative years driving American cars, being a broke kid I drove 1960's stuff in the 1970's. I got to messing with 1960's British cars a little later on and discovered that they were built to roughly the same standards as the US cars. At the time, 100,000 miles was considered to be about the max life you could get out of a car.

I owned a wide swath of 1970's British and Italian tin at the time, most of my buddies owned American stuff. We used to all work on each other's cars and they all had similar problems including rust.

Japanese cars were just starting to really break into the US market at the time, we of course all made fun of them till we found out just how much tougher they were (mechanically and electrically) than the Euro and American stuff. But they rusted too.

Jensenman's experience sounds a lot like my own. Starting in HS, I went through a string of British and Italian cars, with the odd muscle car thrown in, and except for one car that shall remain nameless (cough cough...TR4), they weren't all that different than owning an American car at the time. However, I grew up around Z's as my Dad bought one new and took my driving test in our '73, but I sort of rebelled and had Triumphs and Alfas instead.

Later on I bought an RX7 and it was OK, but it wasn't until I picked up an MR2 to replace one of my X1/9's that I really started to like them. And then when we started racing Twin Turbo Supras and I started really tearing into one, that I truly appreciated how good they were built. Where an Italian car would simply have a sheet metal screw to zip something in place, the Supra would have a nicely engineered cubby hole with great fasteners that simply bolted and unbolted, as many times as you'd want! Imagine my surprise! Even the fenders could be bolted on easily (which we needed because one driver always wanted to move people out of the way with the right front).

I'm getting way off topic, but I never found '70's European cars to be any worse than others, you just had to do your maintenance on schedule.

berkeleying hell. I've looked at ads for these things 100 times. There's no measure of how much I want one. Just like 1000 other cars. They're cool beyond description. I always thought you'd need to do some kind of engine swap to make them go as fast as they look.

I want this real bad now. But then, I could say that about a ton of cars.

fast_eddie_72 wrote: I always thought you'd need to do some kind of engine swap to make them go as fast as they look.

Same motor as the FIAT 124 spider only turned sideways. When FIAT produced the spider Turbo, all they did was bolt on the turbo and plumbing to a stock block and head. No mods. Not even lower compression. I've built like a dozen DOHC FIAT motors and they are STOUT.

Find a head from a 1973 1592cc engine (no EGR passage), use the early "half-moon" manifold for a single Weber carb or rob the Marelli injection system from a later car and Megasquirt it. Find the still-avqailable cam set with 40-80-80-40 cam timing and you will go plenty fast.

Caveat: I've been out of FIATs for a long time so I have no idea how hard it is to source this stuff.

ddavidv wrote: I'm still hung up on that "70s euro POS" comment. I must be a slow learner. And those are only the ones I have images uploaded of. Yeah, they were all horrible (insert sarcasm emoticon here)

I thought I knew my 70s euro POSes... but I need some help w/ this one. So what is that?

PS122 wrote: I thought I knew my 70s euro POSes... but I need some help w/ this one. So what is that?

Fiat 124 CC coupe. The ugly one of the bunch. AC and BC coupes are much nicer looking

The AC

The BC

I like the AC.. The BC was the prettiest... but the CC was dog ugly with that weird grill.

Only 60s -70s Fiat worth anything but scrap

that's pretty harsh.

Driving the Dragon

Sweet Lancia! Makes me want one more!

oldeskewltoy wrote: Only 60s -70s Fiat worth anything but scrap

Next you are going to say the the only 60s and 70s British car worth more than scrap is a Jag

Dang, thread back from the dead. I still think I'd like to have a Scorpion just because of the cool name. Imagine saying this to a date: 'I'll pick you up in my Lancia Scorpion.'

I prefer the European name.. Montecarlo.

good thing there is precisely 1 lancia on CL in all of Michigan right now and it doesn't appeal to me

http://detroit.craigslist.org/mcb/cto/2526719697.html

not many lancias left in the states... Zagatos seem to be the most common

mad_machine wrote: Next you are going to say the the only 60s and 70s British car worth more than scrap is a Jag

One Jag... I believe in the late 70s Jag released a 2 door - XJ6C - that is a nice car, but alas it uses Lucas electrics... as did TVR, I had a 69 Vixen S2 powered by the 1.6 Ford, it is a nice little car... handled phenomenally

There is only one Lancia that I long for....