The death last week of Gianni Agnelli has finally thrown the future of the troubled Fiat empire wide open. Short of cash and ideas, the Italian marque needs urgent attention - and decisions. Sophie Arie reports from Rome.
The death of Giovanni Agnelli last week has sent his family scrambling to hold on to the reigns of its crumbling empire.
But it also opens the door to the potential sale of Fiat Auto's car arm. His death, at 81, after a long battle with prostate cancer, brought tributes from every walk of Italian life, from the Pope to politicians, footballers, factory workers and even the exiled former king, Vittorio Emanuele.
Agnelli, who was Fiat's honorary chairman, is seen as the individual whose genius in the car industry contributed most to Italy's post-war rise from poverty to becaome the sixth richest state in the world.
But the company, which once provided 50 per cent of Italians with their cars and was the symbol of Italian industrial success and style, has floundered under crippling debts in recent years.
It has been criticised for failing to revamp its reputation for cheap, if not always reliable, family cars. Sales have plummeted and only a third of Italians now drive Fiats.
Agnelli was once said to have owned a quarter of the shares on the Italian stock exchange. The family also owns a vast conglomerate, including two national newspapers, the Juventus football club and the ultimate prestige racing marque - Ferrari. But last year Forbes magazine reported that the family's wealth had more than halved to €2.3 billion in 24 months, and shares in two holding companies had lost two-thirds of their value.
News of his death came as some 70 family members were gathering in Turin to start discussing how to tackle the company crisis. Mr Agnelli, whose grandfather founded the company in 1899, became Fiat managing director in 1963 and chairman in 1966, a post he occupied for 30 years.
The markets passed their own verdict on hearing of his death: Fiat shares jumped at the prospect that his death might ease the way for General Motors, which owns 20 per cent of Fiat Auto, to buy the family out.
Hours after Agnelli's death, his younger and less charismatic brother Umberto emerged from a family meeting to try to rescue their legacy.
But as Umberto is also close to retirement age, and both Giovanni and Umberto's sons died early, analysts expect that Giovanni's shy grandson, 26-year-old John Elkann, may eventually be called upon to rescue the family name. Mr Berlusconi has even suggested that the Italian government would step in to save Fiat.
Agnelli, the discreet, sophisticated head of the Turin family often compared to the Kennedys, was equally at home mingling with ordinary Italians as with monarchs and world leaders. He was friends with Henry Kissinger and George Bush senior, while managing to talk his way into opening a factory in the Soviet Union.
His glitzy playboy reputation - Anita Ekberg, Rita Hayworth and Pamela Churchill Harriman all fell for his charms - only added to public admiration. The son of a Bourbon princess, he was a lover of fast cars and beautiful women. "I don't like talking about women - I like talking to them," he once said.
"He embodied the figure of the modern aristocrat who is intelligent, highly connected at an international level, and can speak on behalf of Italy and be heard. That is something the Italian political classes do not have," said Franco Pavoncello, a political scientist at Rome's John Cabot University.
Giovanni Agnelli emerged unscathed out of the country's anti-corruption crackdown in the early 1990s and escaped allegations of Mafia connections that have tainted past and present prime ministers.
But he worked to build up "a power so very nearly absolute that it would eventually come almost to challenge the very legitimacy of the modern Italian democratic state", said Alan Friedman, author of Agnelli and the Network of Italian Power.
But yesterday Italians felt his loss for cultural as well as political and financial reasons. As special editions professing "deep pain" rolled off the printing presses of the country's leading newspapers, production lines at Ferrari plants stood still for a minute's silence, while disgruntled Fiat workers, fearing lay-offs, called off a strike planned for yesterday.
Many last weekend paid their own tribute to the "prince of Italian fortune", who reached out to ordinary Italians as well as the country's elite. As Mr Berlusconi himself once put it: "Many of us first kissed a girl in a Fiat 500. Fiat is in all our hearts."
PLAYERS IN FIAT'S FUTURE
Silvio Berlusconi: Italian prime minister briefly talked about government intervention to stop Fiat Auto falling into foreign hands.
Umberto Agnelli: Gianni's younger and less charismatic brother, he's likely to take over the chairmanship on the departure of the present incumbent, Paolo Fresco. Umberto (68) has always appeared ready to sell off Fiat Auto.
Roberto Colaninno: A former boss of Olivetti and of Telecom Italia, said he was working on a rescue plan that would involve him taking a minority stake in Fiat worth perhaps €2 billion.
Richard Wagoner: GM's chief executive says he is "anxious and trying to help in any way we can". However, some analysts suggest GM is not keen to "throw good money after bad", having last year written off €2.2 billion of its €2.4 billion investment in Fiat Auto.
John Elkann: Giovanni's grandson and heir to the ever-diminishing empire, the 26-year-old may be out of his depth in such company.