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FIAT

Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino, founded in 1899: from the Lingotto to Mirafiori, the industry that shaped twentieth-century Turin.

Image from a publication by ANSA
From a publication by ANSA, 2020-07-11

FIAT (Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino) is the car company founded in Turin on 11 July 1899, which for over a century gave the city factories, neighbourhoods, immigration and social conflict[1]. Since 2014 it has been part of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles[2] and since 2021 of Stellantis, of which it is today one of the brands;[3] the Mirafiori plant continues to build its cars[4].

Nine partners at Palazzo Bricherasio

The founding deed was drawn up by the notary Ernesto Torretta at Palazzo Bricherasio, residence of Count Emanuele Cacherano di Bricherasio, who became vice-president of the new company. The chairman was Lodovico Scarfiotti; the nine partners included Roberto Biscaretti di Ruffia, Michele Ceriana Mayneri, Luigi Damevino, Alfonso Ferrero di Ventimiglia and Giovanni Agnelli, then secretary of the board and, from 1902, managing director[1]. The capital was 800,000 lire[5]. The first plant, on corso Dante, began operating in 1900: according to ANSA 35 workers were employed there and 24 cars a year came out, while according to the Treccani Biographical Dictionary there were fifty workers, in 10,000 square metres of workshops[1][6]. The first model was the 4 HP; from 1904 the oval badge on a blue background, designed by Carlo Biscaretti, appeared[1].

Growth was rapid. In 1905 profits reached 4 million and in 1906 the capital rose to 9 million[6]. The company soon moved beyond cars: buses from 1906, the first Italian aircraft engine produced in series in 1908, the 15 ter truck in 1911, then rolling stock, marine diesel engines (Fiat Grandi Motori), steelworks and, from 1928, tractors in Modena[5]. The war in Libya and the Great War multiplied its orders: in 1915 it had 7,600 workers and in 1917 its capital reached 50 million[5].

The Lingotto and the Biennio Rosso

The new Lingotto plant, designed by the engineer Giacomo Mattè Trucco, was built during and after the war: production began there in 1921 and the official inauguration took place in 1923[6][7]. A test track about a kilometre and a half long ran along the roof, completed in 1919; the helical ramps for driving cars up arrived in 1926[7]. Le Corbusier described it in 1924 in Vers une architecture as

«one of the most impressive sights that industry has ever offered»

Le Corbusier, Vers une architecture, 1924

In 1920 the workers occupied the factories; Agnelli went so far as to propose turning FIAT into a cooperative, but the idea met with the workers' distrust[6]. In the years of the regime the company grew sheltered by tariffs on imported cars, which rose from 60 to over 100 per cent in 1930[6]. In 1932 it had twelve plants across 20 million square metres and 35,000 employees, with sites in Turin, Milan and Modena[5]. That same year an interview with Agnelli, who blamed unemployment on technical progress, earned him a public reply from Luigi Einaudi[6].

Mirafiori, 1939

The Mirafiori plant was built between 1937 and 1939. Benito Mussolini, initially opposed to the project, inaugurated it on 15 May 1939, calling it the «fabbrica perfetta del tempo fascista» ("perfect factory of the fascist age"); management had gathered several tens of thousands of workers in front of the gates. The day was a failure for the regime: the Duce arrived two hours late, was received coldly and left the ceremony earlier than planned, a sign of the workers' discontent over the cost of living and autarky[8]. During the war the Lingotto was bombed repeatedly by the RAF and by US aircraft, from 1940 to June 1944[7].

The Valletta era and the economic miracle

Giovanni Agnelli died in Turin on 16 December 1945[6]. Vittorio Valletta, subjected to a purge at the end of the war, returned to the chairmanship in July 1946. He was also defended by Aurelio Peccei, who said he favoured a broad purge, «ma non di Valletta» ("but not of Valletta"), because «era l'unico che sapesse mandare avanti l'azienda» ("he was the only one who knew how to keep the company running")[9]. With almost 31 million dollars from the Marshall Plan, about 12 per cent of the total allocation to Italy, the plants were renewed; from 1950, in little more than ten years, car production multiplied tenfold, passing a million cars a year in 1963[9].

The symbol of that era was the 600, designed by Dante Giacosa and presented at the Geneva Motor Show in March 1955: it cost 590,000 lire, about thirteen months' wages for a worker, and Mirafiori came to build a thousand a day, for almost 2.7 million units up to 1969[10]. In 1955 Valletta launched the doubling of Mirafiori, and in ten years the city gained over 300,000 inhabitants, most of them arriving from the South. His running of the company went hand in hand with a bitter clash with the FIOM union, defeated in the mid-1950s in the elections for the internal works committee, balanced by a corporate welfare system of housing, pensions and insurance[9]. In 1966 Valletta handed the chairmanship to Gianni Agnelli, with FIAT in fifth place among the world's carmakers[9].

The 35 days of 1980

By the end of the 1970s the company was in crisis and in debt. On 31 July 1980 Cesare Romiti took full powers as managing director; on 10 September FIAT announced 14,469 layoffs, and the unions responded with an indefinite strike that lasted 35 days. On 26 September Enrico Berlinguer spoke to the workers in front of gate 5 at Mirafiori[11]. On 14 October the march of the forty thousand went through the city centre, organised by the department head Luigi Arisio, with placards demanding «Libertà di sciopero ma anche libertà di lavorare» ("Freedom to strike, but also freedom to work"); at six in the morning on 15 October the agreement was signed that replaced the layoffs with two years of special redundancy pay (cassa integrazione straordinaria) for 23,000 workers[11].

From Turin to Detroit, and back to Mirafiori

In January 2009, under the leadership of Sergio Marchionne, FIAT signed a preliminary agreement to take over 35 per cent of Chrysler without a cash outlay; the following May Marchionne announced he would become chief executive of the American group, and through a series of steps FIAT reached full control, buying the remaining 41.5 per cent from the US union's pension fund[12]. On 1 August 2014 the extraordinary shareholders' meeting approved the merger into Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, with registered office in the Netherlands and tax domicile in the United Kingdom: this closed, after 115 years, the history of Fiat as a Turin-based company, which had been headquartered at the Lingotto since September 1997[13][2]. On 13 October 2014 FCA made its debut on the Milan stock exchange[2].

In 2021 FCA merged with the French group PSA to create Stellantis[3]. The Fiat brand remains tied to Mirafiori: in mid-November 2025 production of the 500 Hybrid began there, with a second shift and about 400 hires expected by March 2026, while the renovation of the office building, 61,000 square metres to be completed by 2027, got under way[4]. «Questa giornata rappresenta un nuovo slancio per Torino e per Mirafiori, luoghi simbolo della nostra storia e del nostro futuro» ("This day represents fresh momentum for Turin and for Mirafiori, places that symbolise our history and our future"), said Stellantis chairman John Elkann on that occasion[4].

Pages linking here

Related articles: Giovanni Agnelli (1866–1945), John Elkann, Sergio Marchionne, Stabilimento di Mirafiori, Stellantis, Torino

Sources

  1. ANSA — 11 July 2020
  2. AGI — 22 July 2018
  3. Il Post — 10 January 2021
  4. Stellantis Media — 25 November 2025
  5. Treccani, Enciclopedia Italiana —
  6. Treccani, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani
  7. MuseoTorino
  8. MuseoTorino
  9. Treccani, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani
  10. Quattroruote — 3 July 2023
  11. La Voce e il Tempo
  12. LaPresse — 1 August 2014
  13. Automoto.it — 30 January 2014

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