• Type 137 Montecarlo 
• Newly retrimmed leather seats
• Alquati cam conversion
• Freshly arrived in the UK from South Africa

Believe it or not, the Lancia Beta Montecarlo started life as a Fiat. Codenamed X1/8, the car was a Pininfarina styling study designed to be a new Fiat sports car. At the same time, rival stylists Bertone were working on Project X1/9, a smaller and more delicate design that ultimately became the one chosen by Fiat. 

But all was not lost. The X1/8 was still considered beautiful, and with Lancia needing a new sports model to not only expand its range but also give it something to base its next rally car on as a successor to the Stratos.

Thus, the Beta Montecarlo was born – not Monte Carlo as it is often mistakenly written. Introduced in 1975, the model was offered as both a Coupé and a targa-topped Spyder, the former being by far the more common. 

In 1978, a Series 2 model appeared and it was this model on which the famous Lancia 037 rally car was based, hence making it more desirable than the earlier cars. The later models were also more potent with 118bhp, the see-through rear buttresses being the main point of identity between each series. 

The later cars also dropped the Beta name, so this 1982 car is simply a Lancia Montecarlo. It’s a cool thing, fresh into the UK from South Africa, where the dry climate has been kind to its fragile metal. It’s a genuine RHD model and it also has an Alquati cam conversion – a popular and highly desirable conversion.

This is a genuine low-mileage Montecarlo fresh into the UK from South Africa and ready to be collected from Norfolk. 

It has been imported by a collector who used to live in Cape Town and uses his contacts there to source unusual vehicles. 

The vendor will have had the car MOT’d and serviced prior to sale and it is ready to be UK-registered, which requires a simple V55/5 form to be sent off to the DVLA. 

All duties and VAT are already paid and the import paperwork complete, but the vendor hasn’t UK registered it yet in case the eventual buyer wishes to import it elsewhere. If it stays in the UK, he is more than happy to help register it.

The car comes with all of the import paperwork complete and a NOVA declaration showing that all due taxes have been paid. 

At the time of writing the listing, all other paperwork relating to the car was still on its way via surface mail from South Africa, other than the registration document declaring legal title to the vendor. As such, we are unaware as to what bills and history might be available but will update the listing if it arrives in time.

The Montecarlo has to be one of the best-looking Lancias ever made – and that’s going against a pretty impressive back catalogue.

It was the first car to be both designed and built fully in-house by Pininfarina and was a beautifully executed thing, with delicate detailing and a timeless trapezoid profile. 

This one is astonishingly solid. It has had a repaint at some point in its life, along with some smart aftermarket alloys and refurbished plastic parts, but the main structure is unrestored and the floors, engine bay and inner wings are all in solid order.

As for the paint itself, it’s really tidy, while all of the exterior trim is also in good condition. Inside the engine bay, the car has its original paint and sound deadening material, adding credibility to its unrestored status.  

The first thing you notice when you open the door of the Lancia is the fresh leather smell. It has been retrimmed with new seat facings in recent times, and the leather is still taut and fresh. 

The rest of the interior is fairly tidy, too, with door cards to match the seats and smart grey tufted-weave carpets. There’s some wear to the switchgear, notably the electric window switches and heater controls, while the handbrake lever would benefit from a repaint.

A three-spoke Momo steering wheel adds to the Montecarlo’s ‘mini-Ferrari’ feel, though, and is a nice touch.

There’s something wonderfully eager about the 2.0-litre Twin Cam, which fires up instantly and chatters away enthusiastically waiting for you to blip the throttle. 

Even in standard tune, the ‘Lampredi’ engine makes an enchanting noise, but this one is even better as it has twin Alquati cams, steel-billeted cam shafts that are an extremely effective and very popular option in the Fiat and Lancia Twin Cams, giving a performance increase of around 10 per cent and more mid-range punch, as well as a sonorous, throbbing idle that just screams at you to give it more revs. 

And that makes this car an absolute joy. While we were only able to drive it on private land, it was quite clear that a quick stab of the throttle would turn that ‘bwap, bwap, bwap’ into a full-on bark, with extremely keen power uptake. 

We can also confirm that all of the gears engage correctly and that the steering and brakes feel suitably fit for service. The odometer reads 54,799km and while there is no paperwork to back this up, the overall condition of the car suggests that it could well be correct. 

The Montecarlo is one of Lancia’s finest post-war moments and is both a great car to look at and a fine car to drive. 

With its modified cams and improved interior, this one is made all the more desirable, while it is also an extremely smart and achingly cool colour scheme. 

But the most important thing is its overall condition. Lancias of this age earned a reputation for rot that, sadly, was far from unfounded. Finding one that’s not a festering heap of rust is a rare and unusual delight. 

And here it is.