Word: italianisms
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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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...
...rather flimsy and underpowered Fiats, many of the new models get high marks from experts for looks, lively response and that fabled Italian feel for the road...
...guard at Fiat was not quite comfortable with the high-living heir. Early on, too, he suffered a setback. Alfa-Romeo, a rather small, state-owned company that specialized in costlier high-performance cars, made plans for building a southern Italian plant to mass produce medium-priced cars. Agnelli used all his prestige and persuasion to try to block government approval of the Alfa-Romeo expansion, but failed. By 1971, when Alfa-Romeo begins turning out 450,000 cars a year, Fiat will have the novel experience of facing real Italian competition in the medium-priced field...
...much more likely to mistake it for an art gallery: about 450 paintings and drawings -many by Europe's best-known contemporary artists - crowd the walls of the waiting room, the workshop, the corridors and even the fitting room. As tailor to more than 100 leading French and Italian artists, Sapone, 56, accepts payment for his clothes in works of art. Says Sapone: "It has been a fruitful exchange between the needle and the brush...