David Rosenthal

He's a kid.

He's like Luca back in the day when Enzo tapped him to take over Ferrari.

So Luca and John Elkann have to work together to try to save Fiat.

So the first thing they do is,

is they turn to Sergio Marchione, who is a turnaround expert and financial engineer extraordinaire, who has been CEO of SGS, which is a Swiss consumer products testing company that is also part of the Agnelli family investment empire.

And he's completely turned around SGS and saved the company there.

And they tap him to come in and help them do the same thing.

So he joins as CEO in 2004 with Luca as chairman and John Elkin as the Agnelli family representative.

Yes.

And this is how they really differ from like Ford and the Ford family.

The Ford family was always focused on the Ford Motor Company.

The Agnelli family, Fiat was the crown jewel, but they invested in and built many businesses over the years and throughout the generations.

Yeah.

So the three of them together miraculously turn around Fiat and save it from the abyss through the combination of a couple of things.

First...

They launch the smash hit new Fiat 500, the mass market platform, the city car for Europe.

There was some precedent for this earlier.

Volkswagen had relaunched the Beetle in 1997.

And so that was some of the inspiration.

But the Fiat 500 truly was an amazing success.