Gianni Agnelli quotes:

Well, Italy had been overrun by the War, there had practically been civil war, north and south of the Gothic Line, heavy bombing, the northern industrial cities had been bombed heavily and we had political disorder before 1948.

And I don't say that we didn't expect it, but we were pleasantly surprised to see the generosity of their foreign policy; and the generosity of their foreign policy at that moment was expressed through the Marshall Plan.

Now between '45 and '48, things would change enormously, 'cos we'd had credit in United States, credit from the Bank of America, credit from the Import-Export Bank and people had started working again.

Italy in the first years got food, for the first year or the first periods got food. Then we got raw materials and then we got tool machines, let's say, instruments for working.

All the technology of our production was still pre-War. They were sort of '38, '39 and the War had been stable and so we were infinitely behind whatever had been going on in the United States for instance.

The factories were heavily bombed, but practically the construction work had been redone very quickly.

I mean, what Fiat had it was not very big, it was something like forty or fifty million dollars, but it's enough to get revolving credit, to get starting away again, the buying of new machinery.

And the buying of new machinery meant not only the possibility of production, but even the new technology, 'cos as I mentioned before, we were back of seven, eight years.

The factories were heavily bombed, but practically the construction work had been redone very quickly."

There are men who talk of women and others who talk to them. I don't talk of them, I prefer talking to them