FIAT It is born on 11 July 1889, writing a milestone in the history of Italian motoring.
It is indisputable that the Italians have a great vocation for engines and FIAT has modeled, at least in large part, this great roaring passion!
The Fiat
La FIAT it is an even more structural part of the Piedmontese social fabric, not only for work and well-being, but also for related activities. The launch and the fateful signatures of the foundation of the most important car manufacturer in Italy took place at Palazzo Bricherasio. The first name of the company was Società Anonima Factory Italiana Automobili Torino, but the anonymous Fiat has always had little.
In the beginning the factories were in Corso Dante and employed 150 workers and employees in all. It was a small nucleus, destined to increase exponentially, bringing from southern Italy, thousands of emigrants looking for work and well-being.
Today in Turin and its surroundings, there are the children and grandchildren of those workers, who have become professionals, lawyers, doctors; a great satisfaction for the parents who worked so hard in those factories, especially the famous one "Assembly line".
Senator Giovanni Agnelli
The idea of Fiat, although still embryonic, came to some aristocrats, such as Emanuele Cacherano di Bricherasio and Cesare Goria Gatti; already run in from the previous success, due to the creation of the Welleyes car. However, for a similar undertaking, they needed the financial backing of the Banco di Valore e Sete.
Destiny wanted the sudden defection of Michele Lanza to open wide the doors to the landowner Giovanni Agnelli, a patriarch destined to make himself speak. The first years of the car manufacturer were a bit turbulent, but then Agnelli, determined, took over the company, ferrying it towards years of unimaginable successes at the beginning. The one who would become a senator during Fascism would also have remained at the head of Fiat until the end of the Second World War. Sudden death in a seaplane accident of the only child and being with a daughter-in-law and a large number of grandchildren changed perspective. The patriarch was very strict, a man of immunity.
Fiat Topolino
From the first car built from FIAT, model "3½ HP", produced in 8 specimens, a long way had been made! The construction of the famous Lingotto production plant in Turin began as early as 1916 and went into operation in 1923. The automotive market of the early 900s was pioneering, and reserved for a few.
But during Fascism, the Duce asked Agnelli for an accessible car, small, and able to move in narrow streets, typical of Italian villages.. He was born the Fiat Topolino, which would have made an epoch. The races of that era were important. Sporting successes for Fiat came in the Sassi-Superga race with the 24HP model driven by Vincenzo Lancia.
The rapid expansion of the automotive market allowed Fiat to grow rapidly and succeed in 1908 to open, also a branch in the US market, very difficult for Europeans. Fiat was not only “small cars, but also nautical ones, and trucks for freight transport.
The Fiat 500 is born
The Agnelli family his name is inextricably linked to Fiat, but after the Second World War, the patriarch senator passes the baton to Valletta; as none of his grandchildren are yet able to hold the helm.
Not even his first nephew, his namesake, who would still take a long time to take over the reins of Fiat. Valletta, he was a man of excellent qualities, and took care of acting as a "regent" in an impeccable way; making the company rise from serious conditions because of the second war conflict, and taking care of the "dolphin", that Giovanni Agnelli junior who would take his place. Fiat produced two small cars, cheap and easy to handle, that is, the 500 and the 600. These cars have somehow rebuilt the enthusiasm of the Italians during the fifties and sixties, literally signing the economic boom. Best wishes to Fiat, and may it still give Italians a lot of work and maybe ecological cars!
