Mike Rutherford's column

18th July 2007

And for good measure, the company can also be congratulated for staging the product launch of the year, the decade and, quite possibly, the century. Wish I was exaggerating, but happily for the born-again Italian firm – and sadly for its gob-smacked, comprehensively beaten rivals – I’m not.

True, anyone prepared to spend £5million on a knees-up to celebrate the birth of a new model is guaranteed the party of all parties. But it wasn’t only the budget that made the 500 launch the greatest and most lavish in industry history. An event of this magnitude wouldn’t have been possible were it not for the fact that the car is Fiat’s best since 4 July, 1957, when the original 500 debuted.

Italian style, confidence, emotion, controlled chaos and sheer audacity were vital ingredients, too. As was the co-operation and foresight of the authorities in Turin who effectively handed the centre of the city over to Fiat for a day or two.

Turin’s Fiat 500 Carnival engulfed the streets, the bridges, the squares, the shops, bars, restaurants and even the river that snakes through the centre. Little 500s from 1957 to 2007 were ‘driving’ upstream – one of them hilariously towing a floating caravan – proving that after some disastrous recent years, Fiat has learned to laugh again. Outsiders like me loved every minute of the launch, and the locals were also lapping it up, because they know that success for the manufacturer means greater prosperity for Italy and its people.

About 1,000 miles away in England, things couldn’t be more different. London, for example, is a city run largely by jobsworths who loathe cars, the companies which make them and the people who drive or ride in them.

Imagine the reaction from the discriminating Mayor’s office if a great, British-based car maker such as Jaguar, Rolls-Royce or Bentley wanted to do in the centre of London what Fiat has just done in Turin. They’d be run out of town.

If those who control the capital claim they couldn’t allow it to be snarled up by an English carnival, how come permission was granted for the network to be paralysed by a non-English cycling event called the Tour de France? And what about the little hypocritical matter of thousands of motorised support vehicles, police bikes and cars, helicopters, vans, trucks, ships and aeroplanes involved?

But London’s politicians aren’t alone in having this problem. Other British towns and cities have uneasy relationships with cars, manufacturers, motorists and even their passengers. True, Birmingham staged a serious race on its streets a few years ago, and tried, and failed, to become the country’s car and motor show capital. Yet what have places such as Coventry done lately to celebrate, promote and fly the flag for firms like Jaguar – now up for sale – and Peugeot, which has just pulled out of Ryton? The same question should be put to Liverpool, which has Land Rover and Jag production on its patch, Malvern, Worcs, where Morgan makes its cars, and Dartford in Kent, the production base for Caterham.

And the best example of all is Oxford – a quintessentially English town that builds the MINI. The company’s next major unveiling ceremony needs to engulf Oxford’s historic centre, and the Thames, which runs alongside it. But, shamefully, it cannot and it will not. That’s because it’s a town in love with bikes and buses made overseas, but bizarrely out of love with MINIs built by local residents. Discuss here

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