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Founded
in Turin in 1888 with the Agnelli family involved from the
start.
(1) |
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Giovanni Agnelli ran Fiat and
Juventus AFC ‘with a firm hand’ for 35 years until he died in
2003. His brother Umberto died in 2004. (2)
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Fiat has diversified into other fields like publishing,
insurance, chemical fibres. It earns a lot of money from exports
for Italy. (3) |
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Many jobs were lost by automation from the 1980s onwards. Fiat
advertised the Strada as ‘hand built by robots’. (4)
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In 1993 Fiat opened a factory in Melfi in Basilicata, South
Italy. The labour costs were much lower here, the labour was
less unionised and there were government grants. (5) |
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The company began to specialize in making cheap small cars.
Partly because Italy was then a poorer European country and
these would be more affordable. (6)
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The company followed Henry Ford’s ideas of mass production using
assembly lines to put components together in the new Mirafiori
factory open 1937. (7) |
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The new chairman faces problems to do with rising costs, strikes
when they try to cut jobs, falling sales abroad, foreign
competition. Perhaps they will be taken over? (8) |
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In World War II production of cars fell but construction of
lorries increased. The company diversified into trains too. (9) |
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Fiat is a transnational
corporation making cars all over the world from Poland to
Brazil. The headquarters are still in Turin. (10)
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