Fiat

Fiat was an Italian automobile manufacturer whose history traced back to 11 July 1899, when Giovanni Agnelli was among the founding members of Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino in Turin. The company's first plant opened in 1900 with 35 employees producing 24 cars, and its first model, the 3½ HP, was based on a design purchased from Ceirano GB & C and used a small boxer twin engine.

By 1903 the company was turning a small profit, and production grew steadily, reaching 1,149 cars by 1906, the same year it began trading shares on the Milan stock exchange. Fiat produced its first truck in 1903, exported its first car to the United States in 1908, and also began producing aircraft engines that year. By 1910 it was the largest automotive company in Italy, and a plant was established in Poughkeepsie, New York, by the newly founded American Fiat Automobile Company. During this period, Fiat vehicles were considered a sign of distinction and commanded significantly higher prices than comparable American cars such as the Ford Model T.

During the First World War, Fiat shifted its production toward supplying the Allies with aircraft, engines, machine guns, trucks, and ambulances. After the war, the company introduced its first tractor and, by the early 1920s, held around 80 percent of the Italian car market. In 1922 construction began on the Lingotto factory in Turin, then the largest in Europe, which opened in 1923 as Fiat's first plant to use assembly lines. By 1925 the company controlled 87 percent of the Italian car market.

During the Second World War, Fiat produced military vehicles and aircraft, including the CR.42 Falco biplane and the G.55 fighter, for the Italian armed forces and later for Germany. Following the fall of Mussolini in 1943, the Agnelli family was removed from leadership positions, only returning to management in 1963 under Giovanni Agnelli's grandson, Gianni Agnelli, who served as general manager and later as chairman until 1996.

Fiat reached its peak Italian production in 1970, employing more than 100,000 people domestically and producing 1.4 million cars that year. As of 2002, it operated six plants in Italy, which together accounted for more than a third of the company's revenue. For much of the twentieth century, Fiat ranked as the largest automobile manufacturer in Europe and the third-largest in the world, after General Motors and Ford, a position it held for more than twenty years until the downturn in the car industry in the late 1980s.

Fiat Automobiles as a distinct entity was formed in January 2007, when the Fiat Group reorganized its automobile business. The brand became part of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles following the 2014 merger of the Fiat Group with the American Chrysler Group, and subsequently became a subsidiary of Stellantis in 2021, following FCA's merger with the French PSA Group.

Beyond passenger cars, Fiat also manufactured railway engines, military vehicles, farm tractors, aircraft, and weapons. Outside Italy, Fiat-brand vehicles have been produced in several countries, with Brazil serving as its largest production base abroad, where the brand held the position of market leader for many years. The company also maintained factories in Argentina, Poland, and Mexico. Over its history, Fiat received numerous international awards for its vehicles, including nine European Car of the Year awards, more than any other manufacturer, and was repeatedly recognized for producing vehicles with some of the lowest CO2 emissions sold in Europe.