My friend Greg Burke, FNC’s Rome correspondent, has a new video piece! Always interesting!
Food, Fashion and Fiat
by Greg BurkeI’ve often said that the Italians are good at food, fashion and football. Football meaning soccer of course. They do manage to win a World Cup from time to time, and normally put on a pretty good show.
But I guess now we have to add Fiat. While a lot of people used to joke that the name stands for “Fix It Again, Tony” the company has actually made quite a turnaround. While it looks like Fiat is coming to the rescue of Chrysler, the Turin-based automaker is not actually putting any money down. Now that’s the way to buy a company.
Read the rest, leave comments, and watch the video!
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It is important to remember that the take over of Chrysler is brought to you by the same folks that, through devious means, are seeking to neutralize the opposition of the Catholic Church to some of their other initiatives like expansion of abortion, same sex marriage, and embryonic stem cell research.
Yes, and FIAT and the quite secularist Italian newspaper La Stampa are closely linked… Nevertheless, I just bought an Alfa Romeo (..but don’t read La Stampa! ;)
As for me, I’ve been driving the new 500 for a year now, and it’s brilliant! It should sell hot in the States when it comes, as the drive and the style are a lot like the new Beetle and the MiniCooper.
The car is also equipped with technology that allows me to listen to WDTPRS podcasts through the sound system. [Very wise!] And mine is red: the color chart calls it “rosso sfrontato” which renders to the English something between “bold red” and “confrontative red”, although ICEL would probably have called it “self-actualized red.” [LOL!] Nonetheless, I am proud to DO THE RED!
(Okay, full disclosure, I work for the Company.)
As for the famed secularism of FIAT (or rather the Angelli family), it is nothing to fear. Italians all say they hate the Church because She is constantly shooting off her mouth and being mean. But at heart, Italians all know that the Church is what keeps this nation together. It’s a pleasant little bargain that I have learned to be amused by.
Actually, if we have to believe Vittorio Messori (http://www.et-et.it/articoli/2003/2003_01_27.html – in italian), Gianni Agnelli, though he didn’t really live the life of a trappist monk, not only was not ill-disposed towards the Church, but attended regularly the Sunday Mass.
This doesn’t make FIAT, as a company, any better or worse, of course…
Virgil:
We do have some good small cars manufactured by American companies. I bought a Chevy Aveo not quite two years ago and like it just fine for tooling around the city. It has gotten great NHTSA Frontal Crash Test results and has terrific head room for a small car. The fuel economy is good and its small size is a ‘God- send’ for parking in the city. The european version of the Aveo has apparently done well too. I don’t work for the company!
The Chevy Aveo is manufactured in Korea by Daewoo, which GM purchased several years ago.
Well, I just bought myself a brand new GM (Opel Corsa 5-door). Seems like FIAT is getting ready to buy the only lucrative part of GM and I’ll be dealing with them for service purposes in the future.
Strange, considering they’re in the hole approx. 10 million. But, the same as in the States, he German Government is willing to give a lot. Great. Since FIAT has claimed that Opel would be the perfect partner.. until now, they’ve been the perfect competitor.
Isn’t Cardinal di Montezemolo related to Luca di Montezemolo?
Fiat is not “coming to the rescue” of Chrysler. Fiat has found itself a sweet deal. It buys some heavily discounted ownership of Chrysler (whose survival has just been guaranteed by the full faith and credit of the US government). Then, it licenses technology and designs to Chrysler and gets paid. Chrysler doesn’t have to turn a profit for Fiat to come out ahead.