The founding of Fiat

The investors and aristocrats who created giant of car industry

Lorenzo Delleani's painting of the founding of Fiat shows 
Bricherasio in the cream jacket, with Agnelli third from the right.

A group of nine Italian investors and aristocrats met at the Palazzo Cacherano di Bricherasio in Turin on this day in 1899 to found the automobile company Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino - Fiat, as it would become known.

The group were brought together by Emanuele Cacherano di Bricherasio, a wealthy nobleman and entrepreneur, and his fellow entrepreneur Cesare Goria Gatti, who were founder members of the Automobile Club of Italy. The two had already enjoyed some success in the fledgling world of car manufacture as part of the Ceirano GB & C partnership the previous year and saw the potential of producing vehicles on a much bigger scale.

In addition to Bricherasio and Gatti, the nine consisted of two other nobleman, Count Roberto Biscaretti di Ruffia and the Marquis Alfonso Ferrero de Gubernatis Ventimiglia, the banker and silk industrialist Michele Ceriana Mayneri, the lawyer Carlo Racca, the landowner Lodovico Scarfiotti, the stockbroker Luigi Damevino and the wax industrialist Michele Lanza.

Giovanni Agnelli, who became known as the founder of Fiat and whose descendants ensured kept the family at the heart of the business for 115 years, was not part of the original group but after Lanza dropped out was approached by Scarfiotti, his fellow landowner, to come on board.

After a number of meetings at the Caffè Burello on Corso Vittorio Emanuele in Turin, the group secured the financial support of the Banco di Sconto e Sete of Turin and met in Palazzo Bricherasio to sign the deeds drawn up by Dr Ernesto Torretta, patrimonial notary of the Royal House of Savoy.

The first Fiat off the production line at the Corso
Dante factory was the two-seater 3½ HP

The members paid a capital of 800,000 lire in return for 4,000 shares and entrusted the presidency to Ludovico Scarfiotti. 

The new company’s first outlay was to pay 30,000 lire for the Ceirano business, including all its expertise and workforce. Ceirano had already produced a small car known as the Welleyes - so called because English names had commercial appeal at the time - designed by the engineer Aristide Faccioli and handcrafted by Giovanni Battista Ceirano.

The first car built by Fiat  - the 3½ HP, a modest two-seater with a top speed of just 22mph (35kph) - was a copy of the Welleyes. Eight were built in total in 1899. The first factory was located on Corso Dante, in the southeast of the city, a short distance from the sweep of the Po river that gives the city a natural border. It opened in 1900, producing 24 cars, and remained the company’s production headquarters until the famous Lingotto plant went online in 1923.

Although Giovanni Agnelli quickly became the central figure of Fiat’s expansion and development, he was considered a junior member of the business at first, serving as secretary to the board.

But it soon became clear through his ideas that he had the strategic mindset required to build a profitable enterprise and his status was quickly elevated. By 1902, he was made managing director.

Fiat’s early years were not straightforward. There were various recapitalisations and changes in the composition of the share capital, but Agnelli steered the business through this period and by 1920, having become effectively the owner, he had risen to chairman.

By that time, Fiat had become the dominant player in Italy’s car industry with global expansion under way. Having become profitable by 1903, when it produced 135 cars, by 1906, that number had jumped to 1,149. It produced its first truck in 1903 and its first aircraft engine in 1908.  By 1910, as Italy’s largest car manufacturer, it entered the US market with a plant in New York. 

A rare picture of a young Gianni Agnelli (left) in
conversation with his grandfather, Giovanni

Giovanni Agnelli remained involved with the company until his death in 1945 at the age of 79, although for many years the man at the helm had been Vittorio Valletta, his trusted lieutenant, who had assumed control when Giovanni’s future was compromised by his close ties with the Fascist regime. 

Control would probably have passed to Giovanni’s only son, Edoardo, but he was killed in a plane crash in 1935. In the event, Valletta became president with Giovanni’s death and remained in that role until 1966, when at the age of 83 he finally handed over to Gianni Agnelli, the founder’s grandson.

The Agnelli family's direct operational control of Fiat ended in 2004, a year after the death of Gianni. The last Agnelli to lead Fiat as CEO was Umberto Agnelli, who passed away in May 2004, although the family remains involved, through John Elkann, Gianni Agnelli’s grandson.

Elkann took on a key leadership role and stayed in a prominent management position after the 2014 merger with Chrysler created Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Fiat as an independent family business ceased to be.

Fiat Chrysler evolved in 2021 into Stellantis, of which Elkann is chairman. Elkann is also CEO of Exor, the Agnelli family’s investment company, which owns major stakes in Stellantis as well as Ferrari, Juventus FC, and The Economist.

The company name still sits proudly above the
original factory in Corso Dante, which opened in 1900

Travel tip:

The original Fiat factory on Corso Dante in Turin still exists today and is open to the public as a museum, the Centro Storico Fiat, which has a large number of exhibits, including cars and aeroplanes, outlining the company’s history up to about 1970. The Fiat exhibits are part of the Museo Nazionale dell’Automobile. Tickets cost €10 for adults, with opening times from 10am until 6pm. The factory opened in 1900 and was active for 22 years before the massive Lingotto plant came into use, and became associated with the Fiat Brevetti car.  The museum can be found at the junction of Corso Dante and Via Gabriele Chiabrera about 5km (3 miles) from the centre of Turin, near the southern end of the Parco del Valentino and a few streets from where the Ponte Isabella crosses the Po river.

The Palazzo Cacherano di Bicherasio, which
dates back to 1636, now houses a bank

Travel tip:

The Palazzo Cacherano di Bricherasio, located on Via Lagrange in central Turin, between Via Giovanni Giolitti and Via Cavour, was built in 1636 as a noble residence in the Contrada dei Conciai. It became the home of the now-extinct Cacherano di Bricherasio family in 1855, known for their military honours and cultural patronage. Count Emanuele Cacherano di Bricherasio, a key figure in Italy’s early automotive industry, hosted the founding meeting of Fiat in his study, making the palace a cradle of industrial history. His sister Sofia, a painter and patron, transformed the residence into a vibrant cultural salon, welcoming artists such as Lorenzo Delleani and Arturo Toscanini. After World War Two, the palace housed a school and then an exhibition venue for the Palazzo Bricherasio Foundation, following its restoration in 1994. Since 2010, it has housed Banca Patrimoni Sella & C, preserving its architectural elegance and historical significance while remaining partially open to the public for guided visits.

Also in this day:

138: Antoninus Pius becomes Roman Emperor following the death of Hadrian

1576: The murder of noblewoman Eleonora di Garzia di Toledo, wife of Don Pietro de’ Medici

1593: The death of painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo

1934: The birth of fashion designer Giorgio Armani

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Ludovico Scarfiotti - racing driver

Last Italian to win ‘home’ Grand Prix

Ludovico Scarfiotti grew up in a background
of cars and racing

The racing driver Ludovico Scarfiotti, whose victory in the 1966 Italian Grand Prix at Monza is the last by an Italian, was born on this day in 1933 in Turin.

His success at Monza, where he came home first in a Ferrari one-two with the British driver Mike Parkes, was the first by a home driver for 14 years since Alberto Ascari won the last of his three Italian Grand Prix in 1952.

It was Scarfiotti’s sole victory - indeed, his only top-three finish - in 10 Formula One starts. His competitive career spanned 15 years, ending in tragic circumstances with a fatal crash in 1968, little more than a month after he had come home fourth in the Monaco Grand Prix in a Cooper-BRM.

Scarfiotti in some respects was born to race. His father, Luigi, a deputy in the Italian parliament who made his fortune from cement, had raced for Ferrari as an amateur.  His uncle was Gianni Agnelli, the powerful president of Fiat.

He first raced in 1953 and he won his class in the 1956 Mille Miglia. He joined Ferrari in 1960 and finished fourth on the Targa Florio. Although he subsequently drove for OSCA and Scuderia Serenissima, he returned to Ferrari in 1962 and won the European Hillclimb championship for the marque.

Ludovico Scarfiotti in the Ferrari 312
with which he won the 1966 Italian GP

By the following year, he had become a key member of Ferrari’s sports car team. That year, he won at both Sebring and Le Mans and finished second on the Targa Florio. He also made his F1 championship debut that year in the Dutch Grand Prix. His sixth place finish made him only the 31st driver to score points on his GP debut.

After suffering leg injuries preparing for the French GP a week later, he announced he would not race again. Nonetheless, he was persuaded to return in 1964 and was again successful in sports cars – winning at the Nürburgring.

In 1965 he was European Hillclimb champion and winner of the Nürburgring 1000km for a second time.  Scarfiotti returned to Ferrari’s F1 team when John Surtees suddenly quit in the middle of 1966.

The victory at Monza, in which he set a track record speed of 136.7mph (220.0 km/h), came in only his fourth world championship start.

Scarfiotti gained more successes racing sports cars in 1967, finishing runner-up at Daytona, Monza and Le Mans. He dead-heated for first place with team-mate Parkes in a non-championship F1 race at Syracuse in Sicily.

He and Ferrari parted company in 1968. Scarfiotti was in demand, however, and he soon secured drives with Porsche in hillclimbs and sports cars and, and became Cooper’s team leader, in F1.

Scarfiotti was only 34 years old when he
was killed in a crash in 1968

His death occurred in June of that year at a hillclimbing event at Rossfeld in the German Alps. During trials, he lost control of his Porsche 910, veered off the track and down a tree-covered slope. As the car stopped abruptly, snared by branches, Scarfiotti was thrown out of the cockpit and struck a tree.

He was discovered, badly injured, some 50 yards from his car. He died in an ambulance of numerous fractures. Traces of burned runner along 60 yards (55m) of road close to the crash site indicated that Scarfiotti had slammed on his brakes at the final moment.

He left a wife, Ida Benignetti, and two children from a previous relationship.  He is buried at the Cimitero Monumentale di Torino.

The futuristic Fiat plant in the Lingotto district in Turin,
with its famous rooftop testing track

Travel tip:

The former Fiat plant in the Lingotto district of Turin was once the largest car factory in the world, built to a linear design by the Futurist architect Giacomo Matte Trucco and featuring a rooftop test track made famous in the Michael Caine movie, The Italian Job. Redesigned by the award-winning contemporary architect Renzo Piano, it now houses concert halls, a theatre, a convention centre, shopping arcades and a hotel, as well as the Automotive Engineering faculty of the Polytechnic University of Turin. The former Mirafiori plant, situated about 3km (2 miles) from the Lingotto facility, is now the Mirafiori Motor Village, where new models from the Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Lancia and Jeep ranges can be test driven on the plant's former test track.

Monza's Basilica of San Giovanni Battista, which
contains the jewel-bedecked Corona Ferrea

Travel tip:

Apart from the motor racing circuit, Monza is notable for its 13th century Basilica of San Giovanni Battista, often known as Monza Cathedral, which contains the famous Corona Ferrea or Iron Crown, bearing precious stones.  According to tradition, the crown was found on Jesus's Cross.  Note also the Villa Reale, built in the neoclassical style by Piermarini at the end of the 18th Century, which has a sumptuous interior and a court theatre.  Monza is a city of just under 125,000 inhabitants about 20km (12 miles) northeast of Milan.

Also on this day:

1634: The birth of composer Luca Giordano

1833: The birth of industrialist Cristoforo Benigno Crespi

2012: The death of cycling great Fiorenzo Magni


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Pietro Frua - car designer

Built business from a bombed-out factory

Pietro Frua became one of Italy's leading
car designers in the 1960s

The car designer and coachbuilder Pietro Frua, who built some of Italy’s most beautiful cars without achieving the fame of the likes of Giovanni Bertone or Battista “Pinin” Farina, was born on this day in 1913 in Turin.

He is particularly remembered for his work with Maserati, for whom he designed the A6G and the Mistral among other models.

The son of a Fiat employee, Carlo Frua, Pietro was an apprentice draftsman with Fiat and from the age of 17 worked alongside Battista Farina for his brother, Giovanni Farina, who had a coachbuilding business in Turin. He became director of styling for Stabilimenti Farina at the age of just 22.

After being obliged to diversify during the war, when he designed electric ovens and children’s model cars among other things, Frua bought a bombed-out factory building in 1944, restored it to serviceable order and hired 15 workers to help him launch his own business.

The first car he designed in his own studio was the soft-top Fiat 1100C sports car in 1946.  Subsequent work for Peugeot and Renault came his way and in 1955 he was approached by Maserati for the first time, to work on the design of the two-litre A6G coupe.

Pietro Frua's Mistral, the sports car that helped propel
Maserati into the forefront of the luxury market

In 1957, he sold his company to Carrozzeria Ghia, another Turin coachbuilder, whose name would become synonymous with sporty excellence across the motor industry. The Ghia director Luigi Segre made Frua head of design. His big success there was the Renault Floride, of which more than 117,000 were sold.

They fell out, however, when Segre tried to take credit for the model’s success, leading Frua to open his own studio again.  An influence on Pelle Petterson’s design for the iconic Volvo P1800, he also designed several cars for Ghia-Aigle, the former Swiss subsidiary of Ghia, and for Italsuisse.

By the 1960s, Frua was one of Italy’s leading car designers in Italy, with a reputation for elegant, tasteful lines, a perfectionist who would often deliver his cars to motor shows around Europe himself, having treated the journey as a test drive.

In 1963, Frua designed a range of cars for Glas, Germany’s smallest car-maker, which included the Glas GT Coupé and Cabriolet as well as the V8-engined 2600, which was nicknames the "Glaserati" for its likeness with Frua's Maserati-designs.

The car became the BMW GT, after BMW had rescued Glas from financial difficulties with a 1966 buy-out.

Frua's Maserati A6G had a design that exuded power

Also in 1963, Frua returned to Maserati to build the four-door Quattroporte which, following on from the 3500GT and the 5000GT, saw him firmly back in the Maserati stable.

His Mistral, developed in 1965, propelled Maserati into the forefront of the luxury sports car market, the car finding a substantial following for its powerful, understated image.

In 1965, he began a successful association with the British-based AC car company, for whom his AC Frua Spyder drew on the Mistral’s shape.

In the 1970s Frua began to scale back his work, concentrating on small projects and one-offs, styling exclusive versions of a Chevrolet Camaro, a BMW 2000 TI, an Opel Diplomat, a BMW 2800, a Porsche 914/6 and a five-litre Maserati.

Hew worked with French racing driver Guy Ligier to create the Ligier JSI. Moving his workshop to Moncalieri, a town just south of Turin, he accepted commissions from wealthy individuals such as the Shah of Persia and the Aga Khan.

One of the last cars to enter series production based on Frua’s designs was the two-door GT Maserati Kyalami, which made its debut at the 1976 Geneva Motor Show.

In 1982, Frua underwent treatment for cancer but died in 1983, a short time after his 70th birthday.

Fiat's extraordinary factory in the Lingotto district of Turin
was once the largest car manufacturing plant in the world

Travel tip:

Frua’s apprenticeship for Fiat would have seen him become familiar with Fiat’s enormous, iconic factory in the Lingotto district of Turin, famous for a production line that progressed upwards through its five floors, with completed cars emerging on to a then-unique steeply banked test track at rooftop level. Opened in 1923, it was the largest car factory in the world, built to a starkly linear design by the Futurist architect Giacomo Matte Trucco. The factory was closed in 1982 but the building was preserved out of respect for the huge part it played in Italy’s industrial heritage. Redesigned by the award-winning contemporary architect Renzo Piano, it now houses concert halls, a theatre, a convention centre, shopping arcades and a hotel, as well as the Automotive Engineering faculty of the Polytechnic University of Turin.  The rooftop track, which featured in the Michael Caine movie, The Italian Job, has been preserved and can still be visited today.

The handsome castle at Moncalieri now houses
a training college for the Carabinieri

Travel tip:

Moncalieri, where Frua moved his studio in the 1970s, has a population of almost 58,000 people. About 8km (5 miles) south of Turin within the city’s metropolitan area, it is notable for its castle, built in the 12th century and enlarged in the 15th century, which became a favourite residence of King Victor Emmanuel II and subsequently his daughter, Maria Clotilde. The castle now houses a prestigious training college for the Carabinieri, Italy’s quasi-military police force.



More reading:

How little Battista Farina became a giant of car design

The insult that inspired Ferruccio Lamborghini

Dante Giacosa, father of the Cinquecento

Also on this day:

1660: The birth of composer Alessandro Scarlatti

1930: The birth of radical politician and campaigner Marco Pannella


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Paolo Soleri - architect

Italian greatly influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright

Paolo Soleri envisaged buildings in
harmony with their environment

The groundbreaking architect and ecologist Paolo Soleri was born on this day in 1919 in Turin.

Soleri is largely remembered for the Arcosanti project, an experiment in urban design in the Arizona desert that was like no other town on the planet, a unique fusion of architecture and ecology.

Originally conceived as providing a completely self-sufficient urban living space for 5,000 people when it began in 1970, only about five per cent of the proposed development was ever completed.

At its peak, Arcosanti’s population barely exceeded 200 yet the buildings Soleri erected in accordance with his vision are still there, rising from the desert as an assortment of concrete blocks, domes and soaring vaults, resembling a cross between the remains of some ancient civilisation and a set from Star Wars.

It has never been abandoned, however, and although Soleri died in 2013 the project is still home to between 50 and 100 of his most ardent disciples, still seeking to live as Soleri envisaged.

Although Soleri grew up in Italy and acquired his formal training in architecture and design at the Politecnico di Torino, where he obtained his master’s degree, it was a visit to the United States in 1946 that had the most profound influence on his life.

It was there that he met Frank Lloyd Wright, whose views on what he called organic architecture, in which buildings were designed in harmony with their environment, would form the basis of Soleri’s philosophy.

Soleri's ceramics factory in Vietri sul Mare

He returned to Italy, where in 1954 he built an extraordinary factory for a producer of ceramics in Vietri sul Mare, of which the exterior interspersed conical shapes covered with multi-coloured ceramic tiles and inverted triangles of glass.  Among many wonders of Campania’s spectacular Amalfi coast, the Ceramica Artistica Solimene is a tourist attraction in its own right.

It was not long, however, before he returned to the United States and to Scottsdale, Arizona, close to Wright’s concept home, Taliesen West, which on a smaller scale in that it was home also to a commune of Wright’s disciples could be seen as a forerunner of Arcosanti.

Soleri’s admiration for Wright waned over the latter’s Broadacre City project, an essentially low-rise development that went against the Italian’s belief that the urban sprawls that proliferated across America were a wasteful and inefficient use of land.  Soleri believed that in future man needed to build upwards rather than outwards.

In 1956, he settled in Scottsdale with his American-born wife Colly and established the Cosanti Foundation.  He built trial dwellings using a process he called "earthcasting", in which mounds of earth were built, concrete was poured over the top to create a shell, and the earth then dug away from beneath.

Soleri in Arizona in the early days of the Arcosanti project

In Arcosanti, which he began in 1970, one of his favoured methods was to dig out troughs in the ground in order to create buildings that appeared to be semi-submerged in the earth as if they were a natural phenomenon in the landscape.  Every building in the town was carefully oriented to maximise the use of solar energy, which Soleri harnassed for heat and power.

In Vietri he had learned the techniques of ceramics and bronze casting, which he put to use in Arconsanti by setting up a small factory producing wind bells, which were sold to provide the town with an income.  

Soleri blamed himself for Arconsanti’s failure to grow much beyond its conceptual beginnings, admitting that he did not do enough to promote his work and persuade others to believe in the wisdom of his vision for urban living.

Nonetheless, through the Cosanti Foundation he and Colly devoted themselves to research and experimentation in urban planning and the support of innovative architectural ideas. Arconsanti may not have achieved its goals of becoming a cost-effective infrastructure, conserving water, minimizing the use of energy, raw materials and land, reducing waste and pollution, yet it remains an active project in which more than 6,000 people have had an input since it began.

Soleri died in Paradise Valley, Arizona, at the age of 93.

The distinctive dome of the Chiesa di San Giovanni
Battista in Vietri sul Mare

Travel tip:

The town of Vietri sul Mare is considered to be the southern gateway to the Amalfi coast. The town is best known for the production of ceramics, which goes back to the 15^th century. The church of St John the Baptist is notable for its dome, which is decorated with blue and white ceramic tiles. Vietri borders the historic town of Cava dei Tirreni and is separated from the port of Salerno by nothing more than a sea wall.

Travel tip:

The historical base of the Politechnic University of Turin, as it is now, is the Castle of Valentino, a 17^th-century House of Savoy on the River Po that houses the main teaching campus. The main campus of engineering is in Corso Duca degli Abruzzi in central Turin. Other facilities can be found close to the Mirafiori Motor Village and the Lingotto Building, which were both once car production centres for FIAT.

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Gianni Agnelli - business giant

Head of Fiat more powerful than politicians

Gianni Agnelli, pictured in 1986

The businessman Gianni Agnelli, who controlled the Italian car giant Fiat for 40 years until his death in 2003, was born on this day in 1921 in Turin.

Under his guidance, Fiat - Fabbrica Italiana di Automobili Torino, founded by his grandfather, Giovanni Agnelli, in 1899 - became so huge that at one time in the 1990s, literally every other car on Italy's roads was produced in one of their factories.

As its peak, Fiat made up 4.4 per cent of the Italian economy and employed 3.1 per cent of its industrial workforce.

Although cars remained Fiat's principal focus, the company diversified with such success, across virtually all modes of transport from tractors to Ferraris and buses to aero engines, and also into newspapers and publishing, insurance companies, food manufacture, engineering and construction, that there was a time when Agnelli controlled more than a quarter of the companies on the Milan stock exchange.

His personal fortune was estimated at between $2 billion and $5 billion, which made him the richest man in Italy and one of the richest in Europe.  It was hardly any surprise, then, that he became one of the most influential figures in Italy, arguably more powerful than any politician.  Throughout the rest of western democracy, he was treated more as a head of state than a businessman.

A rare picture of Gianni Agnelli (left) with his grandfather,
Giovanni Agnelli, the founder of FIAT, taken in 1940

He became known as 'l'avvocato' on account of having a law degree but he came to be regarded almost as royalty, Italy's uncrowned king.

Inevitably, Agnelli ran into confrontations with the Italian left and the Fiat workforce, most famously in 1979 when he engaged in a 35-day stand-off with the unions after responding to the latest of many strikes by shutting down Fiat's Mirafiori plant in Turin.  Ultimately, it was the workers who caved in, an estimated 40,000 of them joining a march demanding an end to the strike.

Yet many ordinary Italians continued to admire him.  He was the kind of figure many aspired to be, living a playboy lifestyle in the 1950s, when he acquired an enviable collection of fast cars and was romantically linked with a string of beautiful women, including actresses Rita Hayworth and Anita Ekberg, the socialite Pamela Churchill Harriman and even Jacqueline Bouvier, the future Jackie Kennedy.

A stylish if idiosyncratic dresser - he wore his wristwatch over his shirt cuff, for example, and never buttoned his button-down collars - he was also a football fan.  The Turin club Juventus had been in the ownership of the Agnelli family since 1923. Gianni ran the club personally between 1947 and 1954 and continued to own it until his death, often arriving at the training ground in his helicopter to chat to the players.

Gianni Agnelli with his wife, Marella, in 1966.

Agnelli, who was called Gianni by his family to distinguish him from his grandfather, was the eldest son of Edoardo Agnelli and Princess Virginia Bourbon del Monte di San Faustino.

Edoardo died in an air crash when Gianni was 14. Subsequently, he was brought up by English governesses. His grandfather was so determined to supervise his upbringing and groom him for his future role as head of the family he fought a custody battle with Princess Virginia.

Gianni studied law at the University of Turin, breaking off to join the army in 1941 before returning to complete his doctorate in 1943 after Italy's participation in the Second World War ended. Having lost a finger to frostbite on the Russian front, he won the Cross for Military Valour in North Africa but ended the war fighting against Germany on the side of the Allies.

When Giovanni died aged 79 in 1945, Fiat was initially placed in the control of its chairman, Vittorio Valetta. Although Gianni was made a vice-president, it was with his grandfather's blessing that he did not become involved. Shortly before he died, Giovanni told his grandson he should "have a fling for a few years" before devoting himself to the business and reputedly made him an allowance of $1 million a year to spend as he wished.

With houses in New York, St Moritz and the Cote d'Azur, Gianni became known for throwing extravagant parties and kept the company of Prince Rainier and the young Kennedys among others.

One of Agnelli's prized possessions during his fast car years -
a Maserati 5000 designed for him by Battista Pininfarina

But the years of self-indulgence came to an abrupt end in 1952 when, reputedly after a row with a girlfriend, he crashed his Ferrari into a lorry, breaking his right leg in six places. It was that incident which prompted him to abandon his hedonistic ways and take a more active part in Fiat, becoming managing director under Valetta in 1963.

He finally took charge of Fiat in 1966, when Valetta retired, and under his guidance Fiat rapidly overtook Volkswagen, its main competitor in the popular market. New factories were opened in Russia and Eastern Europe.

The economic slump of the mid-1970s hit the company hard. It did not help that Fiat had become to many on the left a symbol of Italian post-War capitalism, which was probably why it was targeted by Red Brigade terrorists. Many Fiat executives were attacked. Agnelli lived for some years under constant guard.

His methods were not always universally admired - to raise cash, for example, he sold 10 per cent of Fiat to the Libyan government, under Colonel Gaddafi - but over the next 20 years he rebuilt the company's prosperity.

He was married in 1953 to Princess Marella Caracciolo di Castagneto, who hailed from an ancient Neapolitan family, and although there were rumours of extramarital affairs the couple stayed together for 50 years until he died. Tragedy struck his personal life, however, when his only son, Edoardo, died in 2000 in an apparent suicide after battling with a heroin addiction.  His nephew, Giovanni Alberto Agnelli, who was seen as Gianni's likeliest successor as head of the company, also died young, of a rare form of cancer, at the age of 33.

A huge crowd gathered at Turin Cathedral for Agnelli's funeral

This created a succession problem that persuaded Agnelli to remain in the chair until he was 75, at which point he handed control to his long-time number two, Cesare Romiti.

Agnelli remained honorary chairman until his death in Turin in 2003 from prostate cancer, aged 81.  His funeral, broadcast live on the Rai Uno television channel, took place at Turin Cathedral.  A crowd of around 100,000 people gathered outside.

Fiat is now a subsidiary of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, having been rescued from the brink of bankruptcy by Sergio Marchionne just a year after Agnelli's death, following a failed partnership with General Motors.

The Agnelli family still has a presence in the business. John Elkann, the son of Gianni and Marella's daughter, Margherita, is Fiat Chrysler's president.

The Agnelli villa at Villar Perosa in Piedmont

Travel tip:

The Agnelli family estate, where Gianni's widow, Marella, continued to live after his death, is in the village of Villar Perosa, about 40km (25 miles) south-west of Turin.  The estate has been in the family since 1811.  Agnelli is buried in the family chapel there.

Hotels in Villar Perosa by Booking.com

The vast Fiat plant at Lingotto was redesigned by the
architect Renzo Piano. The rooftop test track remains

Travel tip:

The former Fiat plant in the Lingotto district of Turin was once the largest car factory in the world, built to a linear design by the Futurist architect Giacomo Matte Trucco and featuring a rooftop test track made famous in the Michael Caine movie, The Italian Job. Redesigned by the award-winning contemporary architect Renzo Piano, it now houses concert halls, a theatre, a convention centre, shopping arcades and a hotel, as well as the Automotive Engineering faculty of the Polytechnic University of Turin. The former Mirafiori plant, situated about 3km (2 miles) from the Lingotto facility, is now the Mirafiori Motor Village, where new models from the Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Lancia and Jeep ranges can be test driven on the plant's former test track.

More reading:

Why the man who rescued Fiat divides opinion

How Giovanni Agnelli saw the potential of the 'horseless carriage'

The insult that inspired Ferruccio Lamborghini

Also on this day:

1501: The birth of doctor and botanist Pietro Andrea Mattioli

1863: The birth of politician and playwright Gabriele D'Annunzio

Selected books:

Mondo Agnelli: Fiat, Chrysler, and the Power of a Dynasty, by Jennifer Clark

(Picture credits: Maserati by Buch-t; Funeral by JD82; Lingotto plant by SurfAst; via Wikimedia Commons)


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