Near-death experience: The rise and fall and rise of Italy’s premier car manufacturer

Fiat’s own turnaround and its acquisition of a troubled Detroit motor manufacturer, Chrysler, nearly three years ago offer an encouraging story of businesses with their backs to the wall. For many Italians, though, the Fiat saga is as much about the Agnelli family that controls it (with a 30.4% stake). The ingredients of the story include wealth, glitz, glamour, suicide, substance abuse and a multi-million-euro inheritance row. Gianni Agnelli (pictured above), a grandson of the founder and Fiat’s chairman from 1966 until 1996, revelled in a playboy’s life in the 1950s and 1960s and remained a style icon for Italians until his death in January 2003.

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