La soluzione non fu aggiungere un pezzo. Fu toglierlo
Veicoli Dimenticati | Storie in italiano
24,473 views
In 1978, Lancia did something almost no other car manufacturer has ever done: it stopped the assembly line of a car it was selling. Not a silent reminder, not a change introduced quietly on the next batch. The Grugliasco conveyor remained shut down for an entire year.
The reason was the Beta Montecarlo's brakes. But they weren't weak: they were too strong. The vacuum brake booster was calibrated for much heavier vehicles, and on a car weighing less than a ton, simply putting your foot on the pedal was enough for the front wheels to lock up, especially in the wet.
And the solution was the most counterintuitive possible. To make the car safer, the engineers didn't add any new parts. They removed one. The pedal became hard, the driver had to really push with his leg, and that very effort gave the car back the predictability it had lacked.
In this episode: the project born at Fiat under an acronym instead of a name, the unexpected second place of a prototype in October 1974, the move to Lancia, the debut in Geneva in March 1975, the first car built entirely by the Grugliasco atelier, the third name adopted in America, the return of 1980 without the word Beta, and the end of production in 1981 after 7,798 units.
If you enjoyed the story, please like, subscribe to the channel, and write in the comments how many manufacturers today would have the courage to shut down an assembly line to admit a mistake.
Video material from the YouTube channels @carspeedytv and @PereNubiolaPhoto.
20 Comments
La perfetta descrizione per una autovettura che, nonostante i difetti descritti ed altri tipici dei tempi, era comunque onnipresente nei miei sogni da neopatentato..
Nel baule anteriore non c'era nulla, neanche la ruota di scorta che si trovava nel vano motore, per cui anche a velocità sostenuta tendeva ad alleggerire l' avantreno
La soluzione non fu aggiungere un pezzo. Fu toglierlo
Veicoli Dimenticati | Storie in italiano
24,473 views
In 1978, Lancia did something almost no other car manufacturer has ever done: it stopped the assembly line of a car it was selling. Not a silent reminder, not a change introduced quietly on the next batch. The Grugliasco conveyor remained shut down for an entire year.
The reason was the Beta Montecarlo's brakes. But they weren't weak: they were too strong. The vacuum brake booster was calibrated for much heavier vehicles, and on a car weighing less than a ton, simply putting your foot on the pedal was enough for the front wheels to lock up, especially in the wet.
And the solution was the most counterintuitive possible. To make the car safer, the engineers didn't add any new parts. They removed one. The pedal became hard, the driver had to really push with his leg, and that very effort gave the car back the predictability it had lacked.
In this episode: the project born at Fiat under an acronym instead of a name, the unexpected second place of a prototype in October 1974, the move to Lancia, the debut in Geneva in March 1975, the first car built entirely by the Grugliasco atelier, the third name adopted in America, the return of 1980 without the word Beta, and the end of production in 1981 after 7,798 units.
If you enjoyed the story, please like, subscribe to the channel, and write in the comments how many manufacturers today would have the courage to shut down an assembly line to admit a mistake.
Video material from the YouTube channels @carspeedytv and @PereNubiolaPhoto.