Word: fiats
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...better. His family has long flourished in Italy's subAlpine Piedmont, a region noted for its soldiers and industry. Grandfather Giovanni Agnelli gave up a military career in 1899 and founded, with partners, Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino.* After some early hard times, Giovanni took personal control. Soon Fiat prospered on the strength of racing successes. It absorbed many early rivals and moved from artisan to assembly-line production, which enabled it to build 70% of the Italian Army's World War I trucks. The company went on to furnish Mussolini's military, and Il Duce rewarded...
Agnelli went to work under Vittorio Valletta, a paternal technocrat who had been old Giovanni Agnelli's choice to rebuild Fiat after the war. With Mussolini gone, Valletta found an even better patron: the ordinary Italian consumer. In 1953, he brought out the tiny, tinny Fiat 500 model. Italy's first cheap mass-produced car, the 500 fit Valletta's prescription for something that could be made at the lowest possible cost, yet still be "a complete automobile." Italians dubbed it the "Mickey Mouse," and it proved to be for them what Ford's Tin Lizzie...
Such successes have made Fiat one of the few really big, privately owned Italian companies that do well in an unusual mixed economy where 20% to 25% of industry is held by government-controlled corporations. These corporations, which are concentrated in steel, transportation, construction and other basic industries, often have a privileged access to capital that leaves smaller private companies short of cash-an ill that has never befallen Fiat...
Almost alone among European car makers, Fiat has adopted Detroit's successful technique of expanding its model lines as its market grows more affluent. In 1964, Fiat introduced its 850, a mightier mouse but cheap enough (at $1,280) to sell well in that year's recession. Since then, largely at Gianni's urging, Fiat has followed Il Boom with medium-priced cars and then luxury models. In all, the company now builds 20 models, including its sporty 124, which is becoming Europe's Mustang, and the Fiat-Dino, a 120-m.p.h. job that costs...
Agnelli had specialized in handling Fiat's finances, and he always knew that he would become chief executive when "circumstances made it available." The moment came when Valletta finally retired at 82 in early 1966. Valletta had groomed another technocrat for his job, but Vice Chairman Agnelli had other ideas. "I decided that I was the best person," he says, "and I took over...