How Soviet steel destroyed the Italian auto industry

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

As part of the agreement on the licensed release of FIAT 124, the USSR paid the Italian side not only with currency, but also with industrial materials.

Abroad, this is one of the most beloved stories, or, as they say now, urban legends associated with the USSR. She is retold by word of mouth, she is unconditionally trusted by default, she shocks and surprises modest, well-mannered Europeans no less than stories about bears idly wandering around the center of Moscow or the male population of Russia, at least half of which spent time in the zone.

This story is about the disgusting quality of Soviet metal, which destroyed the reputation of the entire Italian car industry and almost destroyed it, that is, the Italian car industry, in general at its root.

In a nutshell, the situation is as follows. Signing an agreement with the Soviet Union on the licensed production of FIAT 124 (better known as VAZ-2101) and the construction of a huge assembly conglomerate (better known as the Volzhsky Automobile Plant), the Italian side did not engage in charity. Yes, the Togliatti deal was largely determined by political interests and trends, but business remained a business even in the ever-memorable Soviet era. Another thing is that the USSR paid with FIAT not only in currency, but also in kind, in the sense of industrial materials. Including steel.

This is where the fun begins. According to the popular legend of Soviet steel, Italians received not just a lot, but an awful lot. According to some estimates, it was enough for the entire local auto industry in the 70s and 80s. Despite the fact that this steel was, to put it mildly, not of the highest quality. Now add two plus two and we get the natural result. Italian cars on the bodies, which went to the rolled sheet Made in USSR, had a disgusting habit of rusting even under the most greenhouse operating conditions.

And this is only the basis of the legend, one can say only its skeleton. Thanks to the beloved habit of mankind, namely the habit of embellishment, over time, the skeleton has overgrown with absolutely phenomenal meat. In all seriousness, many seemingly normal foreigners stated that the Soviet metal that was shipped under contract to Italy was the remelted hulls of old warships. Some unique people walked further along the road of self-proclaimed dementia, remembering in connection with Russian steel … the T-34 tank. Yeah, they took it and melted it down. This is how it grinds some of them - dear and expensive!

The two most famous victims of Russian metal were the Alfasud and Lancia Beta cars. The reputation of these models, according to popular European rumor, was hopelessly trampled by bodies that had rusted almost from the factory (in the case of "Alpha") and subframes (in the case of "Lancia"). However, you can find dozens of other Italian cars, which, according to the “experts”, suffered from the “rusty plague from Russia”. And some of them even come across Ferrari and very exotic De Tomaso and Iso.

For example, the authoritative edition edmunds.com publishes a list of the worst cars of the 20th century: “99th place. Fiat 124 Sport Coupe (1967). Nice 2-door coupe, the verdict of which was signed by low-grade Russian steel. Rust was standard equipment on every model.”

It is well written. Briefly, clearly, visibly. Full of chilling revelations and scattered all over the Internet forums of fans of Italian cars: "Russian steel rusted even under the sun", "a tiny chip turned into a through hole in a week." And so on and so forth …

I am never going to defend the honor and conscience of the Soviet steel industry, but I admit that I am slightly offended for the state. Moreover, don't you yourself think that the prosecution is getting confused in the testimony?

Take a moment with the Fiat 124 Sport Coupe, which, as the authors of edmunds.com correctly noted, went into production in 1967. But excuse me, the main assembly line of AvtoVAZ will start working only in three years. Does this mean that deliveries of Russian steel to Italy began back in 1967, when only pits were dug in Togliatti? Or did ours pay in advance? Probably, this is possible, but the harmony in the accusations is still not felt - there are too many of these “ifs” …

And then what about Alfa Romeo, or rather with a rusting beauty named "Alfasyud"? The release of this model began in 1971. Okay, the time interval is correct here. Let's say a batch of disgusting Soviet metal from the melted gunboats of the Great Patriotic War managed to get to Italy. It’s just not clear how this metal suddenly took and ended up in Pomigliano d'Arco, a commune in Naples, where the plant for the production of "alfasuds" was located? Indeed, at that time FIAT had nothing to do with Alfa Romeo - the deal to acquire Alfa would take place only 15 years later, in 1986 …

With Lancia, the story is no less strange. Until the early 1980s, corrosion problems were not the hallmark of a brand. And suddenly the insidious Russian metal on the stretchers of the Beta model becomes the cause of a grandiose scandal in the UK. Moreover, the investigation carried out by the well-known tabloid Daily Mirror inflicts such a blow on the brand's reputation that Lancia generally curtails all its English operations and leaves the market! Leaves for good. Why, then, hasn't the Russian rust made its way to Lancia cars earlier? She had 10 long years for this …

Do you know what is the most interesting? None of the apologists for the theory of "rust from the USSR" can cite not one - not one! - a source confirming that Soviet metal was used in the production of Italian cars. I am not saying that this was not the case, but then you need to point to specific documents. The presumption of innocence - the accused is not guilty until proven otherwise - after all, so far no one has canceled.

In fact, it can be assumed that part of the rolling sheet, which the Soviet Union used to pay for the Zhiguli, actually went to the conveyors of Fiat and Lancia. It is possible that the metal itself was not of the highest quality (although the same Soviet cars of the 70s by no means turned into dust in three years, for nothing that they were operated in a climate somewhat harsher than the one to which the inhabitants of the Mediterranean are accustomed), but discrepancies in the readings (some models, like Alfasyud, rusted, while others, like Alfasyud-Sprint, almost did not rust, or, say, according to the owners, the corrosion resistance of the 1975 FIAT 131 is higher than that of a similar model of the early 80s) suggest to the idea that the root cause of most of the problems is not so much lousy Russian metal, but rather typical Italian indifference. I do not care at all stages of the development and production of cars.

For example, on some Alfa Romeo models of the 70s, clips for fastening the windshield and rear windows, when fixed, ripped off a layer of paint and soil, creating luxurious foci of corrosion. Another problem was the partition between the passenger compartment and the engine compartment (what the British call the firewall), where moisture penetrated between the sheets of metal and started its dirty work. For this, for example, the beauty Alfetta was famous.

Let's go further: the bolts of fastening the upholstery of the front pillars rested against the roof, scraping off the protective coating - this is how a small swamp began to rot on cars equipped with a hatch right above the driver's head. If you look through all the same thematic forums of fans of Italian cars, then almost every model will have a hefty dossier with the most problematic places in terms of corrosion.

And these are only technological miscalculations. It is also necessary to take into account the human factor, or rather the Italian factor, in the assembly process. At many Italian factories of that time, including the one in Naples, where they were produced, "Alfasuds" painting shop was located separately from stamping. So, before getting into the paint room, completely untreated bodies were on the street for some time. In dry weather, maybe it's okay, but if in the rain?

It was even cooler in the production of special models such as the sporty Fiat X1 / 9. The bodies assembled in the workshops of the Bertone carroceria were sent to FIAT to paint, but due to ill-conceived logistics they often hung out in the open. When the workpieces did get to the paint brushes, the Fiat workers applied soil and paint over the body panels that were already starting to fade. And so it will do!

Another problem was the robotic assembly, for the first time (in the case of Fiat in any case) tested on the Ritmo model. “The robots were simply not told where to apply anti-corrosion protection!” - the local Petrosyans joked about this. But the “happy” owners of Ritmo were not laughing: the process of half-life of the body was going on literally before our eyes.

Add to this just in the 70s, Fiat's global program of cutting production costs, including thinner metal body panels and rational (read: reduced) use of paints and varnishes, which began at Fiat. Of course, let's not forget about the problems with the trade unions - are you familiar with the concept of "Italian strike"? What are the trade unions! The same Neapolitan Alfa Romeo plant, as they said, caused extreme irritation among the local mafia structures, dissatisfied with the increased influence of the industrial North in the region … What is the Italian word for “High-quality assembly”? No, you haven't heard …

But, of course, all this is nonsense, and the main reason for all the troubles of the Italian car industry is low-quality Soviet steel. There can be no doubt about that. It is not known who was the first to come up with the legend “about Russian rust”, but this person knew exactly the meaning of the proverb “From a sore head to a healthy one”.