Lingotto, once a factory turning out Fiat cars, now houses a concert hall, conference centre, shopping centre, hotel and university, as well as an art gallery displaying part of the collection of the late Giovanni Agnelli, a member of Fiat's founding family, and his wife.
Maybe the Catholic church will turn in their gold for a chalis made out of fiat paper.
One of the cars they're going to be bringing out is the Fiat 500, which is - if you know the BMW MINI, it's that kind of car.
Worse, because of the essential role that money plays in commerce, a fiat dollar drives our entire economy out of integrity, rendering it dysfunctional.
FORBES: The Fiat Dollar: As Unreliable As My 1971 Fiat 124 Sedan
Imposing reporting requirements on these deposits through regulatory fiat threatens to drive significant investments out of our economy by undermining the rules Congress has set in place specifically to attract it, and at exactly the time when our economy can least afford it.
FORBES: Legislators Oppose IRS Proposal To Make Banks Put Foreign Tax Law Above U.S. Law
Mr Marchionne is adamant that Fiat will not put any of its own much-needed cash at risk, and the Fiat team that has been carrying out due diligence on Chrysler thinks it will be two years before the American firm will feel real benefit from the partnership.
Unlike a fiat currency where it can be produced out of thin air, gold takes 1 ton of rock for each ounce and is becoming harder to find.
In 2009, Marchionne ambitiously outlined a variety of new products for the Chrysler-owned brands, many of them derived from Fiat platforms, that would be filling out the sparse portfolios especially of Chrysler and Dodge right about now.
FORBES: Chrysler's Profits Balloon, But New-Product Plans Shrivel
It led eventually to Fiat, where his first job was sorting out the sale of a machine-tool subsidiary in the early 1960s.
Other Fiat models are long in the tooth and losing out to fresher products from rivals.
The cheapest models of four of the five top-selling cars, made by General Motors, Volkswagen and Fiat, received a one-star rating, out of five stars, while other top sellers also scored poorly.
And if things do not work out and Chrysler slides into bankruptcy, Fiat has no liability exposure but would be in pole position to pick up the assets it needs to implement its North American strategy at fire-sale prices.
In 2011, Chrysler still faced existential questions nearly two years after Fiat and the U.S. government had bailed out the company.
FORBES: Chrysler's Super Bowl Silence Could Give Its Ad Huge Impact
Short of a government bail-out, the obvious solution would be for Fiat to get rid of the car business which, as a smallish car maker in a world dominated by huge global groups, is increasingly an anomaly.
They doubled down on the charge, and then they pointed out that Jeep is owned by Chrysler, is owned by Fiat.
Matt Davis of Fiat USA says the rental-car deal, branded as ePass, grew out of brainstorming sessions where company officials debated how to deal with the car's 87-mile range.
WSJ: To Spark Buyers for Electric Cars, Drop the Price to Nearly $0
Chrysler is somewhere between these extremes: it has 50, 000 workers (whose numbers include those making engines and gearboxes, unlike Fiat's) in ten factories in America, Canada and Mexico turning out 1.6m cars.
On December 10th the boss of Fiat Auto, Roberto Testore, resigned, paying the price for his failure to sort out the problems of the Italian group's car-making business, which staggers from loss to loss even as the European car market booms.
Recently, Chrysler reached out and found what could be a potential partner -- the international car company Fiat, where the current management team has executed an impressive turnaround.
WHITEHOUSE: President Obama on Stabilizing the Auto Industry
Plus, to his credit, he seems to understand that the battle with the bottle is not something that can be decreed by autocratic fiat, but rather that it is going to have to be a long, drawn-out (boring) campaign if it is ever to be effective.
FORBES: Russian Health and Demographics Update: Births Still Increasing, Deaths Still Decreasing
"Button downs are really American sport shirts, worn with a jacket and tie for an Ivy-League look or out of context with an Italian suit a la Gianni Agnelli, " the late Fiat mogul known for his style, says Tom Julian, a New York-based men's style consultant.
WSJ: Guide to Men's Shirt Collars: Which Styles Go With Which Occasions and Flatter the Face
Had he failed to do the deal, he might well have walked out of the government and back, perhaps, into Mr Agnelli's employ (Fiat needs a bit of help).
The plan is to grow the Alfa Romeo and Maserati brands globally and flesh out the Jeep lineup, including the addition of a new small SUV, while limiting the Fiat brand to derivatives of its 500 and Panda small cars and scaling back its struggling Lancia brand.
Mr Demel at Fiat Auto says he stands by the goal of breaking even at the operating level in 2005, and moving out of net losses a year later.
应用推荐