Fiat. A passionate Italian
FIAT is an Italian automotive brand, it stands for ‘Fabrica Italiana Automobili Torino’, the name of the company, founded in 1899. In the late 19th century, the automobile industry was born. FIAT was one of the architects of this history and still makes history, always remaining a leader in innovation and the automotive market. Today’s FIAT is the largest industrial concern in Italy, producing cars and engines as a part of even bigger automotive corporation FCA, which combined the Italian FIAT brand and the American Chrysler brand. FIAT Chrysler Automobiles N.V. concern stays 8th in the ranking of the largest players of the world automobile market, it owns such brands as Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Maserati, Ferrari, Lancia, RAM, and truck brand IVECO. FIAT won the “European Car of the Year” international award more often than anyone else! 12 times!
Yes, the coolest sports cars in the world are produced in FIAT! The FIAT logo is on the hood of all Ferrari racing cars. It is also embroidered on the uniform of the World Champion in motorcycle racing Valentino Rossi, who prefers FIAT 500 to all other models in his everyday life. World-famous racers, such as Michael Schumacher and Kimi Raikkonen, represented FIAT company. The FIAT Development Center has the ‘Ferrari Technology Award’ as the best technology partner.
FCA sells around 4.9 M cars a year. This covers 5.6% of the global automotive market! The concern has 162 plants, 87 scientific and technical centers. FCA cars are sold in 150 countries. The Italian-American concern has its head office in London. It works through its subsidiary FIAT Italy S.p.A. in EU and through FCA US, (earlier - Chrysler LLC) in the USA.
FIAT also has the FIAT Industrial division, which produces trucks, industrial and agricultural machinery. The world’s largest agricultural machinery maker CNH (Case New Holland) is part of the FIAT Group. FIAT Corporation also includes Gilera, Piaggio, and Vespa motorcycle manufacturers. In the production of commercial vehicles, FIAT is almost ahead of the planet… FIAT Professional brand, which produces commercial vehicles, sells 14.9% of all commercial cars in Western Europe.
FIAT won the ‘European Car of the Year’ international award more often than anyone else! 12 times! Among the winners, there are such models as FIAT Uno and Tipo, FIAT Punto, Bravo, Stilo, Panda. The latest winner was FIAT 500 with 385 points ahead of Mazda 2 (325 points) and Ford Mondeo (202 points).
Despite all this, the FIAT brand name has recently become an occasion for jokes… Why? There is such a popular opinion (to say the least) that the FIAT cars, despite their interesting and modern design, are not so high-quality… According to an independent market researcher, the US company J.D. Power and Associates, in 2014 and 2015, the FIAT brand took the worst place in the ranking, based on the number of defects found in new cars. In this regard, English-speaking car enthusiasts tell that FIAT stands for ‘Fix It Again, Tony’… And as Germans say it stands for ‘Fehler In Allen Teilen’ (‘Defects in every part’)… Regardless of these jokes, FCA is the eighth largest automotive giant in the world. It is the largest Italian concern of the world’s importance, with 1063 companies and a total of 223,000 employees, 111,000 of which are employed in 61 countries outside Italy.
The first-ever
And if you remember history, FIAT was the first-ever in many technological developments. Innovation, super-design, technology has always distinguished this passionate and impulsive Italian :) Once in Torino, Europe’s first car assembly line was installed. FIAT was the first car with cardan transmission. Common Rail injection system was developed jointly by FIAT and Bosch. FIAT Coupe 2.0 turbo was the fastest European car of its time. FIAT Barchetta was recognized as the most beautiful sports convertible, designed in the famous design studio called Pininfarina.
By the way, the founder of FIAT, Giovanni Agnelli, was one of the first people to understand that each car manufacturer needs its own style, and the stylistic artist should create it. To make the appearance of the car individual, Agnelli ordered his specialists to develop six grille designs.
FIAT and Alfa Romeo were first to order bodywork from such masters as Locati & Toretta, and later Zagato and Touring. The Italdesign style combined Maserati 3200GT, Lexus GS300, and FIAT Grande Punto. One of the most stylish designers of our time, Frank Stephenson, who designed the BMW X5 and Mini, gave shape and bright personality to Maserati MC12 and FIAT 500.
And the FIAT 500 became the world’s smallest car, launched into volume production. Little Cinquecentos changed the face of Italy, making the car accessible to everyone. FIAT 500, the “great baby”, became a symbol of mass motorization of Italy. First born in 1957, it won the hearts of almost 3.8 million buyers and became a legend!
In 2007, FIAT decided to revive the legendary brand and open its way to the future. Thus, the new FIAT 500 was born, which embodied the recognizable forms of its predecessor and the latest technological developments that meet all the requirements for a modern car. The unusual design of the new ‘500’, developed in Centro Stile FIAT, with all its freshness, novelty, and beauty, leaves no doubt that what you see is the very legendary FIAT 500.
Another car, the famous FIAT Uno, became a leader of innovations in its time, offering a wide range of innovations: in electronics, in the use of alternative materials, in the engine design, etc. And FIAT Panda with a design developed at the ItalDesign studio is still one of the cheapest models in Western Europe.
The coolest sports cars in the world are produced in FIAT! The FIAT logo is on the hood of all Ferrari racing cars! It is also embroidered on the uniform of the World Champion in motorcycle racing Valentino Rossi, who prefers FIAT 500 to all other models in his everyday life.
Technical breakthrough is the heart and soul of every FIAT project, both in the past and, hopefully, in the future. FIAT helps change the world, and changes with the world. More than a century-long, FIAT shows a true Italian passion in its advancement. We can see this passion in ideas, design, technologies, enterprises, and cars. It’s everywhere! After all, the passion for ideas is what moves you forward.
‘Imagination is the force for progress’ - these words fit perfectly this stylish brand. FIAT design is really ahead of time.
