The World on Wheels

The first “Motor Show” on record in Italy to feature the world’s car makers was held in Turin, from April 1st to 24th, 1900, hosted in the stunning Fine Arts Building. Milan’s turn came next the following year, when it hosted the “International Motoring and Cycling Exhibition” from May 5th to 27th, 1901. The show then alternated host cities, with a rather inventive numbering system, until 1914, when the First World War closed the curtains on the event. A new beginning, however, came in 1920 with the staging of the first ever Milan Fair. 

An Automobile Show was one of the attractions of the first Milan Fair, held along the bastions of Porta Venezia (April 12th–27th, 1920). It was a courageous decision, one taken by the organizers in defiance of the U.I.F.A. (the Italian car makers’ association) and the ban – lifted the following year – on its members taking part in events and races, due to the delicate economic situation in the country.

Although there was no number in the official title, it was, for all intents and purposes, Italy’s “1st Motor Show” of the post-war era, marking the start of a new series.

With just two Italian car makers (Restelli and Prince) and forty-eight accessory manufacturers exhibiting at that first show, it was a long and uphill road, but over the years the show would race from success to success.

The 1921 show featured a total of one hundred exhibitors, including both car makers and accessory manufacturers, and set the stage for a number of official presentations, including the Isotta Fraschini Tipo 8 and the Fiat 501. The following year, in 1922, Lancia chose the Milan Fair and its Motor Show to unveil the new Trikappa.

As Milan established itself as the official venue for the event, a major milestone was reached in 1923 with the construction that year of the new Sports Pavilion by the Milan Fair Board – the future Pavilion 3, overlooking Piazza VI febbraio. It was the new home for the Motor Show. 

The 1923 Motor Show was also exceptional for the quality and quantity of new models officially presented at the event, including the OM 665 Superba, the Fiat 519, the Itala 56, the racing version of the Chiribiri Monza, and cyclecars by Petromilli, F.I.A.M., and Colombo.

In 1925, it was the turn of the Lancia Lambda, the Itala 61, the Alfa Romeo 1500, and the Fiat 509. In the meantime, the number of car makers exhibiting at the show was also growing, rising to thirty-four in 1926, from seven different nations.

A country like ours should not only be registering every year at least five times the number of new vehicles registered in 1927, but it should also have no less than one million motor vehicles on the roads every year. As we can see, we are well below those figures in reality, but we must not despair nor desist… (“Facing the Risk” in Auto Italiana, May 15th, 1928)

Another milestone came in 1928, when the event was organized by the A.N.F.I.A. (the Fascist National Organization of Automobile Makers), together with the Italian Group of Automobile Factories and Coachbuilders (GIFAC).
The event was confusingly billed as the “1st International Motor Show,” but this time for good reason, as it was effectively the first to be included by the Bureau International Permanent des Constructeurs d’Automobiles in its international calendar of events.

The 1932 Motor Show marked a turning point for the event, and not only because Maserati exhibited for the first time. The Milan Fair and its Motor Show that year set the stage for the unveiling of the Lancia Artena and Lancia Asturia, the Bianchi S5 1500, and the Fiat 508 – or the “Balilla,” in tribute to the Fascist regime of the time – ushering in the new era of mass motorization in Italy. The show that year would also be remembered as the “ten thousand lire show” – the price of the new Balilla. 

Two years later, in 1934, the presentation of the four-speed Balilla drew in record crowds to the show, with visitor numbers topping 272,000 people. It was a success, however, that would not be repeated in the near term. The following year, the opening of the show on November 9th, 1935 came just one day before the League of Nations adopted sanctions against Italy for its invasion of Ethiopia.

The tenth show, in 1937, attracted just 37,000 visitors and exhibitors from just two foreign nations (Germany and the United States), marking the last Motor Show before the outbreak of the war, and the last to be held in Milan. 

A new world was forming on the horizon.

Ferrari, Pininfarina, Opel, and Ford are just some of the leading car makers celebrating milestones in 2023. While Opel celebrates its 130th anniversary and Ford its 120th, the milestones reached by other worldclass car makers this year are no less important.

The historic car designer Pininfarina was incorporated in Turin in May 1930 under the company name Società Anonima Carrozzeria Pinin Farina by Battista Farina, Giovanni Battista Devalle, Gaspare Bona, and other investors.

Alongside models manufactured at its own factories, Pininfarina is renowned for its historic partnership with Ferrari, for which it has designed more than one hundred models in sixty-five years.

It was March 12th, 1947 when Enzo Ferrari started building the first Ferrari-badged cars, marking the establishment of the renowned car maker (although the trademark “Auto Costruzioni Ferrari” was only registered in 1957). Just a few months later, seventy-six years ago, the Maranello-based team celebrated it first racing victory with the 125S.

The year 2022 marked the 160th anniversary of Opel, the car maker founded in 1862 by Adam Opel in Rüsselsheim, Germany, originally for the manufacture of sewing machines. The first Opel car—the Opel Patent Motor Car, System Lutzmann – was unveiled in 1899. The 1000th Opel car would roll off the production line seven years later.

On June 16th, 1903, Henry Ford founded the motor company bearing his name in Derborn, Michigan, together with his brother and a dozen investors. However, the first Ford automobile to see the light was crafted by Henry Ford himself in 1893, in his family home in Detroit, in what was a golden age of experimentation with automobiles and internal combustion engines. In 1908, Ford released the Model T, the first affordable car on the market for the masses, achieving his dream to “put the world on wheels.”

The year 2023 marks the 110th anniversary of Bamford & Martin Ltd, the dealership opened in 1913 that just over ten years later, in 1926, began building its own motor vehicles as the company Aston Martin Ltd.

Another two anniversaries come to us from Japan. The first is the 60th anniversary of Honda, a company founded in Japan in 1948, but which only began manufacturing motor vehicles and motorcycles in 1963. The second is the 90th anniversary of Jidosha Seizo, renamed the Nissan Motor Company one year after its founding. In 1933, Seizo bought out the Tobata Casting Automobile Dept, along with its factories and trading rights, including those for the manufacture and distribution of the Datsun brand – for years Nissan’s leading marque. 

It was thanks to the company’s chairman, Yoshisuke Aikawa, that the mass production of motor vehicles took off in Japan, with a view to competing with and beating back American imports.

Fifty-five years have instead gone by since the Hyundai Motor Company started up mass production of cars in 1968, after its incorporation in 1967.

The Spanish car maker SEAT is celebrating seventy years of business in 2023. 

Now part of Volkswagen Group, SEAT was founded in 1950 as the Sociedad Española de Automóviles de Turismo by the National Industrial Institute, but only started up production operations three years later, in 1953, at its Zona Franca factory near Barcelona. The first model to roll off the production line was the SEAT 1400.

Lamborghini is celebrating the anniversary in May 2023 of the release of its first sports car on May 7th, 1963, crowning the aspirations of Ferruccio Lamborghini, founder of the company originally named Lamborghini Trattori. The 350 GTV was developed and produced in record time, marking the start of company’s rise to becoming Italy’s leading manufacturer of grand tourers. At the 1966 Geneva International Motor Show, Lamborghini presented what would immediately become the icon of all sports cars and a true work of art in its own right – the P400 Miura, on display at the MoMA in New York since 1968.

The year 1963 also marked McLaren’s debut as a sports car manufacturer and race car constructor.

Along the aisles and avenues of the Milan Fair, a special place was held—in the hearts of visitors and in the Hall of Fame of motoring excellence—by one legendary automobile in particular. It was the Fiat 2800, built by the Italian car maker from 1938 to 1944. 

The Torpedo version featured sumptuous modern interiors and a fully convertible top, and, as the name suggests, it had a streamlined body that tapered at the front. In 1948, the Fair Board purchased its own Fiat 2800 Torpedo from a special lot of three built in 1938, each registered as a custom car, to use as a parade car for heads of state, ministers, and personalities of all kinds.

Of the limited number of Fiat 2800s made, five were built in a six-seater Torpedo version as state cars for the Quirinal Palace, to transport dignitaries in motorcades and parades – the royal family at first, and then, after the war, Italy’s presidents. Its sleek shape and spacious, modern interiors, comfortable plush seats, limited speed (max. 130km/h), and smooth pull made it the ideal parade car.

The last Italian president to ride in the car at the fairgrounds was Giovanni Gronchi in 1962. However, after a long series of changes in ownership, the car survived to see the turn of the millennium and was used again by then-president Carlo Azeglio Ciampi on two occasions, for official visits to the Goldsmiths Pavilion (May 6th, 2003) and to the new Fiera Milano Rho Exhibition Centre (July 14th, 2005) – set to become a leading driver of business growth for all the country.