Quote Originally Posted by Graham Breeze View Post
In the late 1960s/early 1970s FIAT used a lot of Russian steel (Italy being the most communist-oriented country in western Europe at the time) as part of a general cosy relationship between FIAT and communist regime car makers. So FIAT built car plants in Russia and sold the machinery that produced the Lada and the Polski FIAT, etc.

This eventually destroyed the reputation of FIAT, Alfa Romeo and Lancia for being other than rust buckets in countries where it rained - and in the case of Lancia led to its complete withdrawal from the UK market after the calamitous Lancia Beta.

Why do I remember? Because in my youth I had a bought-from-new FIAT 124 which was written off, when less than 4 years old, because of internal corrosion.

There is Swedish steel, Russian cheese pretending to be steel and whatever the Chinese choose to sell us steel.
I do remember their reputation for rust. However, in 1985, or so, I bought a Fiat Uno from a lovely Irish couple who lived in Swanage, Dorset, with some 15,000 on the clock. In a bid to reverse their reputation, Fiat embalmed all of their cars in waxoil - quite a pleasant smell. That little Fiat went on to accumulate just under 200,000 miles before I gave it away, gratis, to a friend, and it lived on for a good few years afterwards. This was despite having an in-line 'tin' device, (the name of which I forget) in the fuel line when they phased out leaded fuel. The 'tin' increased the octane level. At the time, I heard about this device at a VW Beetle owners club meeting and the designer had used them during WW2, on the GB spitfires, sent to the USSR, as the Russian fuel had poor octane levels. You see, Russia again!!