La Fiat 124 berlina

The Fiat museum in Turin

Fiat and the events for the 150th anniversary of the Italy’s Unit

With the 150th Italy’s Unit anniversary, Fiat Spa – one of the main event’ sponsor - has decided to offer the opportunity to visit some places wich made so famous the Company.
On the site www.fiatspa.com you can find all the informations about tours organized by Fiat and you can book a visit simply by filling a form.
The tours includes:

the di Mirafiori bodies factory
Abarth factories
ThelMirafiori Motor Village
Fiat Research Center

In the event the Chiabrera street Fiat Historical Center will be open until next November 27, 2011 on Sundays, Mondays and Thuestdays from 10 a.m. to 01.00 p.m. and from 03.00 p.m. to 07.00 p.m. (free enter).
In the Centre there are a complete collection of cars, relics, models, posters of famous artists who covers the entire history of the Company; during the path is possible to find ships’ turbo-motors, aircraft, aero-engines, bycicles, refrigerators and even so washing machines, all Fiat made; a path that crosses the rebuilding of some of the factories, symbols theirselves of the Company’s history and her work method change.

The 150 years of Italy’s Unit are strongly mixed up with over a Century of Fiat History and by visiting the Fiat Historical Centre you can live an exciting tour who’ll tell you the history of Fiat Company and the mobility in Italy and will come to a virtually end to the Great Repair Factories (OGR) in Turin, where trains were overhauled until Seventies and by this year will be host a great contemporay culture center.

Here it will be put on display the new 85 CV Twin Air engine and the Fiat Mio concept car: two products who symbolises present and future, and includes innovation and care environement, a theme wich Fiat is ever sensible.

Scopri i dettagli su www.fiatspa.com

Paolol's visit to the Centro Storico Fiat

Past February 13 I’ had gone to the Fiat Historical Center located in 20, Chiabrera Street at Turin. It opened that thay and will be opened until next November 27. It opened after 150th Italy’s constitution and held the 1999’s Fiat Centenary materials.

There are all the best hits cars who make great the success of Fiat in Italy and even in the world. It was inaugurated in 1963 into a liberty building that was the first company factory site in the far 1907 and it is a Dante Avenue’s extension shop.

By the beginning these buildings witnessed all the great goals the Fiat Group achieved and the case wanted the Togliattigrad agreement with Russian Tarazov prime minister for the first step, the agreement that led to the giant AutoVaz car plant to be built: by that factory come off thousands and thousands of our Fiat 124’ s klones.
Now a complete collection of Fiat cars are now stored and exibited here; along with relics, scale models, great posters that gives you the account of Italy’ s car history and the related factories.

The building is realized on two floors with even a lift; on the first floor there are aero engines and even an entire fighter plane!

Into a neat and smart environement we begin with the first motorized coaches to the 20s and Thirthies cars. We can see the famous Fiat “Mephistophele”, an aero engine equipped race car – now completely overhauled – wich win the speed primacy in France in the far 1923 with a top speed of near 235 Km/h. There is a 1920 factory corner rebuiding, car prothotypes, machine tools, and some mythic Fiat 600 and 500 wooden mock-up even too.

Colourful posters are on the walls and tell you the history of the Company, at a stage there is a piece of 60s assembly line: a Fiat 1100/103, a 1400B and a Fiat 124 bodies are hold in in. This last sports the body number 153,553. At a time Fiat built other items also, like washing machines: there is an advanced example on show.

Time to time there are publicity shot available to see: one for all the Gino Bramieri’s showman one with the 1964 Fiat 850 Sedan. In a dedicate space there is a smart Zhigulì 21-01 sample, beautifully displayed beside some big poster that explain the 1966 Fiat-URSS joint-venture. At Turin, Fiat Bosses are particularly proud for this great Company’s exploit, who saw the growth of the so-called “East-Mirafiori”, the nickname of the VAZ car plant on the Volga River.
Then we can found examples of the major Fifties Italian cars, like the Fiat 600, the 500, the Fiat Dino, the 1500 Cabriolet, the 2300 Coupé and many more.

On the top floor there is a complete collection of aero engines: in the past years Fiat built engines and aeroplanes also. Among the others there are the Fiat A.80 engine who powered the first all-metal twin-engine bomber, the B.R. 20, and the Fiat A.S. 6 who powered the so famous Macchi M.C. 72 which won the seaplanes speed primacy of the Schneider Trophy vintage, on October 1934.

The masterpiece of this collection is Fiat G.91R-3 who won the 1961 Nato tactical light fighter
contest in pristine conditions. Fiat built very large ship’ s turbine motor plant, aeroplanes ‘ prothotype, drive trains… etc.: there are the models of these ones also.

In a corner there is the Ing. Dante Giacosa’ s office reproduction also, plus pubblicity posters with famous actors and actresses and others (biker’s champion Fausto Coppi with the 1100/103, actor Walter Chiari with the 124, actress Florinda Bolkan and many more).

The rebuilding of the Historical centre resulted in a big enlargement who saw the growth up to 9400 in-line metres of shelves. They collect over 5,000 books and over 300 thousand tecnical drawings and millions of images. There are three Italian masterpiece art painting: “Terra, Mare e Cielo” [Earth, Sea and Sky] by Rodolfo Margheri is the best for me and it’s from Thirthies.

This big Museum is very fine: very clean, smart and comprehensive. Through it it’ s possibile to relive the entire story of this big Company and the last 100 years of Italy. We can relive great emotions also and we can see how much glorious is this Great Italy’ s Company.

Photo gallery Museo Fiat in Torino
to enlarge photos click on the miniatures