Il Lingotto

 In Italy, Torino is the auto manufacturing capital of the country and has been since around 1910. Fiat (Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino) is headquartered here. For a long time, they, like Ford, had an American acronym synonymous with their name. Ford had Fix Or Repair Daily and has actually become a more quality car in the last two or three years. Fiat, or Fix It Again Tony, has also had a similar shift in their quality from the days of constant disrepair to one of the better cars available in Europe (supposedly FIAT is making the jump across the pond in the next few years to try to get some of the American market place and capitalize on its demand for fuel efficient cars).

Luigi!

Fiat is a very old company, starting in 1899 (the guy who was the president of the company, Giovanni Agnelli, lead the company from 1899 to 1945! That’s through two world wars and a shift from the car being a luxury rarely seen to an everyday item!). in 1908, FIAT exported their first car to the United States and quickly became popular among the elite. Ford’s Model T rolled off the production lines and into someones hands for $825 while a Fiat was far more pricey and more of a status symbol, at somewhere between $3,600 to $8,600, depending on what options were selected. Fiat still today sells some of the most exclusive and expensive cars in the world, including Alfa Romeos, Maseratis and Ferraris. By 1910, Fiat became the leading producer of cars in Italy and hasn’t relinquished that position for over a hundred years. Also in 1910, Fiat opened their first factory in the states, in Poughkeepsie, NY (not that I have any idea where that is), and produced its first car.

That factory didn’t last long though, because of burdensome regulations and taxes placed on the auto industry by the US government during World War I. the factory shut its doors in 1917. It was only recently demolished to make way for retail space. Through the war, Fiat was forced to seize all consumer activities and devote its factories to War efforts, producing and supplying the allies with Aircraft, Engines, Machine Guns, Trucks and Ambulances. When the war came to its conclusion with the Treaty of Versailles, Fiat expanded business from simply cars and trucks (and military munitions and supplies when needed) to the agricultural industry, producing its first tractor. By the early part of the 1920s, Fiat had a market share in Italy of 80%! Can you imagine 80% of the cars you see being one brand? That’s amazing and that number grew to 87% in 1925.

With all its success, Fiat shut down its old plant on Corso Dante (a street here in Torino) and opened the famous Lingotto Factory. This factory was the largest factory in the world when it was built. It became most famous for how cars were built here. Starting at the ground floor, the auto shop would assemble the engine and most of the parts then the first floor (in Italy, there is a ground floor, or a 0 floor, and the 1^st floor is located above that floor), the body shop would make the body of the car, the second floor would paint the body, the third floor would do some of the assembly, the fifth floor would finish the assembly and on the roof, cars would be tested on their oval.

Fiat was actually a very successful sales company in the United States, especially during oil crises and oil shocks, when the companies more fuel efficient vehicles became a more popular option for drivers to chose. However, after gas prices fell in 1981, Americans began to purchase SUVs, minivans and Trucks, none of which Fiat had a good hold in and the car industry was beginning to see more Japanese involvement which took a cut of FIATs action. With numbers falling fast, FIAT pulled out of the United States in 1984 and has been out ever since (though is rumored to be planning a return with the Fiat 500 or panda to try to get a cut of the fuel efficient car action).

FIAT struggled for a while, with little to no growth and failing to capitalize on emerging markets and looked to be headed into a steep decline. In 2004 Sergio Marchionne was appointed as CEO and has lead the company through a strong turnaround (so stong, in fact, that it actually, during 2009, entered a partnership with Chrysler to help Chrysler produce more fuel efficient cars and smaller cars, as well as help them by covering the cost to retool a plant in the United States. This agreement was amended only 4 months later when it was announced that Fiat would go from a 20% stake to 51% owner of Chrysler as soon as their debts to the government were repaid)

Enough of the financials and history though! Today, this was the location of my adventure. We had our official visit with the police to start the residency permit process (in Italy, anybody here longer than 3 months needs to get a residency permit, which takes about 3 weeks to a month to get- seems silly to me but I don’t make the rules) and then got to go to the Lingotto (which is now part mall, part convention center, part hotel, part Fiat offices, part grocery store, all under one roof).

When we got to the lingotto, we got to go straight to the roof (which you get to through a book store oddly enough). It was a clear day (the first clear morning in about a week) so we could see all the way across the city to the Alps. It was strange to know that on the other side of the mountain, about the same distance, as Reno to Sacramento, was France, and when looking the other direction was only an hour train ride to the Mediterranean Sea.

    

That arch is the Olympic Arch

We got to walk around the roof (which is massive) and I walked up to the top of the banked turns. I hadn’t though of how banked the turns had to have been to make it so cars could get around to the other side of the building but it was really steep.

France is really just over those mountains...

After walking around the test track, we went back inside and went to the old Fiat Factory owners personal art gallery which was very cool. There was a bunch of pictures of Venice,

a statue

and a roman coliseum made out of bricks turned into a garden, which was really cool.

On the way back to the apartment, we picked up a bottle of wine and made dinner, steak and pasta, with salad and Kiwi for desert (salad and Kiwi not pictured, they were in the fridge when i took the picture)

The Wine of the night, very good. no idea what kind it was though...

I hope you guys had a good week! Sorry it took so long to post another post! Not much happened this week outside of school but, with the weather, it’s been a down and inside week. For those of you in school right now, I hope you have a good semester! This weekend we are headed to the Egyptian Museum and the Mole and I should have a bunch of pictures for you guys of those adventures coming soon!