FIAT Hits 100 years!

100 years old Italy's most prominent, most productive automobile manufacturer has hit the hundred mark! FIAT (Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino), now 100 years old, represents a lot more than just a factory. It's an integral part of Italian culture, economy and politics. It's great deal of what stands for Italy abroad, particularly on the European continent.

Fiat and Torino Fiat and Torino, represent not only an intense and enduring relationship; it is the relationship standing behind an enterprise which has become a household word, first in Italy and then throughout the world. Without doubt, Fiat is also one of the principal reasons for the city's socio-demographic change. Many southern Italians emigrated north after the second World War, leaving behind their farmlands for the promise of regular wages in the factories of the north, especially Torino.

Political Importance Fiat does not signify engines and practical design. The factory and the countless supporting industries which surround it employ thousands of people. This goes a long way to explain Fiat's increasingly important political role. Considering the company's contractual clout in dealing with the unions, it's easy to imagine the power of owner Gianni Agnelli himself, Senator for life and media baron.

The Ford Model Way back at the beginning of the century, when this Torinese legend began, Fiat saw the US as a place to get in touch with the latest technology and learn all the tricks of the trade. Founder Giovanni Agnelli visited the States for the first time in 1906, and upon his return issued a general statement saying "we've got to do it like Ford." Agnelli learned to heed the impulse of innovation, to embrace the audacity of investment -- and the Ford concept that a big market calls for high salaries.

Investments and the Marshall Plan Agnelli realized that Italy, although still industrially backward, had the potential to become a center of automobile manufacture and distribution. In 1926 the family moved to take out a 10 million dollar loan at J.P. Morgan's bank in New York. Close ties with the US continued with the institution of the Marshall plan, which revived the Italian market, initiating the consumer boom of the post-war years. The symbol of those boom years soon became the Fiat, the Fiat 500 of course!

The acquisitions In the 1980's, the acquisition of Alfa Romeo and Lancia-Autobianchi, made Fiat the sole producers of non-luxury automobiles in Italy. Ferrari soon after came under Fiat control too, steered into the difficult and challenging future of Formula 1 car racing. Truer now than ever before, the Italian car is Fiat and there's no looking back as the company races toward the third millennium.