Excluding the engine, where efficiency will reach Italian levels only when a new engine plant is opened, it takes around 21 man-hours to build a Palio in Betim, or about two hours more than it would at Melfi, the firm's most modern Italian plant.
"I'd only been sitting in my BMW for 30 seconds with the engine running, so when the door was opened by a man in camouflage, I knew what was happening and stayed fairly cool, " he said.