R.P.FELICIOLI
Foreword
Fiat and the long jpurnay to the Market.
- Fiat and motor car production. From craft to industry
- The Morotistation of Italy. Fiat and the Italian economy Car
- A problem: Confronting
the Markets
- The Goal. Flexibility and production automation.
- Fiat and the Centrality of the customer.
- Fiat and the globalisation of markets.
- Market fragmentation and the specialities strategy.
- Plurality of brands and design strategy.
- A look at the future.
Fiat 1899-1999 La Creatividad - El Diseno - El Exito, published in 1999, celebrates 100 years of Fiat, offering a concise but accurate chronicle of the production and industrial history of the Turin-based company, with an insight into the future.
The leitmotif is the aesthetic evolution of the automobile, and therefore the importance of car design, which, especially from the late 1980s onwards, became a central aspect of project activity to which maximum attention and a huge amount of professional and financial resources were dedicated.
In an increasingly competitive market, no one can any longer afford to ignore the formal aspect of cars it produces: beauty, like safety, quality and respect for environment, has also become an integral part of the automotive industry's fundamental duties and objectives.
For a long stretch of automotive history, the aesthetic evolution of the product was left to the imagination and skill of the coachbuilders who managed this sort of monopoly on beauty with great dignity and ability.
This has not precluded the culture of engineers and technicians from producing many cars of very high formal quality. It happened punctually, every time a new model marked a technical turning point and the achievement of a more advanced level of excellence.
