IIRC, Lancia's reputation in the UK was so bad, they actually stopped importing cars here. I also remember a Fiat Strada that was about 9 months old coming into a tyre company I worked for. It was absolutely riddled with rust, the roof was the worst. Transpires Fiat gave the owner all their money back (save a token amount) and let her keep the car, saying it must have missed its rust proofing at the factory.
The thing with the Italians is they make/design (pretty much) the best looking cars, scooters and cycles but the build quality isn't always the greatest.
It's not just with cars though. I have fond memories of working with a 1979 Lamborghini 854DT tractor that was a pretty impressive piece of kit for its time, but the cab rusted to bits on them. The Fiat 680,780 etc were similarly affected.
It has to be said that the 500 and 600 range MF tractors weren't much better from a rust protection point of view.
Lamborghini did learn a lesson from it as the newer range introduced in the mid '80s seems to have survived the test of time.