Meet The Owner- Theo Kyriacou and His Lancia Trevi
By Ellie Priestley |
14th July, 2020
Anyone who visited the 1980 Motor Show will recall the crowds around the new Austin Min Metro and Ford Escort Mk. III – plus a new Lancia, for the Trevi made its British debut at the NEC. Some visitors were taken with its three-box styling, while many were mesmerised by its fascia. The advertisements boasted it was ‘a sophisticated monitoring system’. However, quite a few Britons thought it resembled moon craters, a Blake’s Seven spaceship - or indeed Swiss cheese.
Lancia intended the Trevi to appeal to the conservative motorist, and it also presented an opportunity to revitalise their image in the UK. The “Rust Scandal” caused Beta sales to descend from 11,000 in 1977 to under 7,000 in 1979. In response, the company ‘went to Volvo’s back yard (the salt covered roads of Sweden) to develop and test our anti-corrosion techniques’.
The Trevi was sold in the UK as a model in its own right, without any Beta badging. Imports were initially restricted to the 2.0-litre version, and at £6,489, it was cheaper than its main rival, the Alfa Romeo Alfetta 2.0. The specification included alloy wheels, tinted windows, a sliding roof, adjustable steering, and – already a “must” for any self-respecting executive transport - electric windows.
Autocar of 1st August thought the Trevi had ‘the performance and economy to appeal to the Lancia enthusiasts’. However, the same article also noted ‘most comments regarding the fascia were not too favourable’, and that front seat passenger could only see the dials by ‘peering over the driver’s left shoulder’.
The November 1981 edition of Car evaluated the Lancia opposite the Citroën CX Reflex and the Saab 99 GL. It concluded ‘they prove the existence of a wide choice of interesting well-engineered alternatives to the jumped-up mass-market saloon’. The Trevi received particular praise for its refinement, levels of equipment – and for being ‘the fastest and best-handling of the trio’.
The Car scribe even raved that ‘the Trevi’s quality surprised us which just has to be a good omen for Lancia’s future sales development in this country’. Almost inevitably, the feature contained a jibe at the ‘dreadfully ugly (for most) and impractical fascia’ but this was not enough to distract from a very appealing saloon. Theo remarks that:
The Beta range was very advanced for its time. The twin-cam engines are arguably one of the best four-cylinder engines ever made. The double trailing arm independent rear suspension was unique, and it’s been copied by many since and still in use today. Dual circuit disc brakes all round was almost unheard of for a family car at the time...
The line-up was later augmented by the 1.6-litre version although the supercharged Volumex was sadly not offered to British motorists. Production ceased in 1984 after just 36,784 examples. Theo’s Trevi is only the only RHD Automatic version on the road in the UK, and he came by it in January 2009 when:
“I took my Gamma for restoration. By April of that year, I was suffering from severe Lancia withdrawal symptoms when I saw the Trevi advertised for sale. The car had 11 previous owners (so very unloved) and was for sale by a guy called Jason who only bought the car for its custom leather interior which he wanted for his Series 3 Beta Berlina. So, he took out the leather interior, replaced it with a worn cloth interior and sold the Trevi to me for more than he paid for it!”
Theo initially intended to keep the silver Lancia until the return of his Gamma but “when the restoration was completed 26 months later, I fell in love with the Trevi”. As for the typical public reactions, he finds that little is known about this fine vehicle – “it’s very much a ‘marmite’ car for most. They love or laugh at the dashboard and consider the car to be an ugly duckling”, or as with the remainder of the Beta family, “simply custodians of rusty steel”.
All of which is to gravely under-estimate a very enjoyable sporting saloon that appealed to the cognoscenti who regarded a Ford Cortina Ghia as social death. Trevi owners liked to point out no Alfa Romeo, BMW, Citroën, Rover, Saab, or Volvo featured such a fascia. The designer Mario Bellini claimed it was a complex architecture of interiors in a small, very restricted space. A challenge tackled by the architect from a structural, and not purely aesthetic, angle’. And it only happened to resemble a certain Swiss dairy product.
With Thanks To: Theo Kyriacou
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