I have heard this before,
I was told the field was adjacent to an industrial estate in Genoa (port city), the 131s were there for a few weeks before being transported.
This may have been an isolated incident and there were many causes for the rust issues... dodgy Russian steel, poor rust proofing, bad drainage design and too many exposed double skins....all of these factors made the cars vunerable to the metal maggot.
Its a shame and well known fact that nearly all the Italian steel bodied cars of the mid to late 70's were badly affected by rust...even Ferrari (308 GT4 & 412 especially).
We are lucky today as owners that most of the rot-boxes have long gone.
Anyone got a 131 with a water mark inside...say halfway up? ?