A Visit to Fiat’s Remarkable Lingotto

Story and color photos by Jonathan Sharp

You may not be that familiar with Lingotto but if you have seen the original (and by far the best version) of The Italian Job, you may recall the scene in the film where the three Mini Coopers containing the stolen gold are pursued by the Police in their Alfas around a banked test track. That test track is on the roof of Lingotto, the Fiat factory which is located in a suburb of Turin.

Lingotto Fiat factory as it appeared in 1928. Photo Wiki Commons.

The movie was again shown on the U.K. Channel 4 TV as part of their Christmas television schedule this year. It has become a bit of a tradition over the years for them to do so, and reminded me that the once state-of-the-art Fiat factory, is now – among other things – an upmarket hotel. I always wanted to stay there and the opportunity arose in early December when my wife and I decided to spend a weekend in Italy to stock up on Italian Christmas goodies, enjoy the artistic Christmas lights, and for us to visit the nearby Museo dell’Automobile.

Factory posters of the twenties reflected the Lingotto productoon line.

Even before WWI Fiat was expanding automobile production; the advent of the war accelerated the process as Fiat was also making trucks, marine engines, tanks, and aircraft. Profits were put back into the business and the factory was constructed in as one wag put it, “a field of flowers belonging to Agnelli.” Construction was completed by 1922. Like Ford’s Rouge River Rouge plant, the new factory was self-contained, truly state of the art, and spearheaded an astonishing spurt in production.

No race, but Fiat chassis being tested on the track on the roof.

The Lingotto factory was the first example of modular construction using reinforced concrete and it is constructed in the form of two parallel buildings, each 507 meters (1662 ft) in length, 5 stories high and each arm is joined in three places by 5 story high office linkways. At each end of the building there was a spiral ramp linking each floor. The building itself had an internal volume of approximately one million cubic meters.

Raw material entered into the building at ground floor level, and the finished product was then driven onto the roof top track for testing. The products were then driven off the building via the spiral ramp directly to the adjourning railway yards to be distributed worldwide. It is these railway lines and also the close proximity to the river Po on the opposite side of the factory that dictated that the production line be spiraled upwards rather than laid out horizontally as was the case in the Ford factories in Detroit.

Banking is still in place on the roof and made famous by 'The Italian Job.'

Over the years Lingotto built many of the most famous Fiat models including the Balilla and the Topolino. By the 1970s the factory had become outmoded and was finally closed in 1982.* However, unlike its inspirations in Detroit, a further use for the factory was sought and in 1985 the Genoese Architect Renzo Piano was commissioned to regenerate the factory.

Pinacoteca Giovanni e Marella Agnelli Art Gallery.

The building now contains an exhibition hall (Lingottoe Fiere), an auditorium, two hotels, a large shopping and restaurant gallery, and the Engineering faculty of the Turin Polytechnic. The Pinacoteca Giovanni e Marella Agnelli Art Gallery is located on the roof together with a restaurant and “The Bubble” which, to my mind, is probably the most striking exterior feature of the makeover. It is a glass dome meeting room for up to 25 persons with an attached helipad and is located, like the Art Gallery and an upmarket restaurant on the roof of one of the connecting buildings situated between each arm of the factory. Whilst the interior of the building has completely changed, the exterior and connecting ramps at each end remain as they were during the factory’a glory days. Indeed, to get between the various floors of the shopping gallery one can still walk up and down the spiral ramps, which is so much nicer than using an escalator. The office building in front of the river facing side of the factory which was built in 1928 still contains the Head offices of the Fiat group.

The glass dome and heliport.

As my wife and entered into the NH Lingotto Hotel reception area, I knew it was going to be my type of hotel because there in the corner was a car. My initial thoughts were “Wow! a Studebaker – that’s a strange thing to see in Turin” but closer inspection revealed the car to be the Lancia Loraymo, which now forms part of the Lancia Company’s Historic Collection, and was on loan to the Hotel. The Loraymo was designed by Raymond Loewy and is based on a 1959 2500cc Flaminia. The engine was tuned by Nardi. The body was built by Motto and the finished example was first displayed to the public at the 1960 Paris Motor Show.

The spiral ramp at the City end of the building which now forms part of the Super 8 shopping center, make sure you bring your credit card if you enter into here.

The Hotel interior is very modern and spacious, making full use of the original height of each floor of the building. I had to wonder which part of the construction of the motor cars took place it what was now our very large and comfortable room.

*If you are wondering about the Mirafiori plant, it is located west of Lingotto and began to produce cars after WWII as within ten years the Lingotto factory was out of date, though still active. The 2 million sq. meter Mirafiori factory produced the bulk of the cars in th 1960s and 1970s, but later on Fiat began to relocate assembly to southern Italy and abroad. Today only the Alfa Mito is produced at Mirafiori. Click here for the Lingotto Hotel.