FIAT hometown loses prestigious show to Milan.

Il Salone dell’Auto, Italy’s biggest trade fair for the automobile industry, has decided to switch from Turin to Milan’s Parco Sempione for its sixth edition, scheduled for July 2020.

Thus the historic home of the FIAT marque, for decades the jewel of Italian industry, has lost a prestigious international event to the benefit of the capital of Lombardy.

The Salone regularly clocks up around 700,000 visitors to fill the coffers of the host city’s businesses, hotels and restaurants – as well as providing an opportunity for major international deals among automobile manufacturers and sellers.

The decision was only the last in a series of disappointments for Turin mayor Chiara Appendino. First her city lost out in the bid for the 2026 winter Olympics, and then the protests against the TAV high-speed rail line from Turin to Lyon in France have been gathering ever more steam in recent weeks.

Now Turin has lost the Salone dell’Auto because a majority of the city council, many of them environment activists, voted against her and threatened to evict the motor show from the city’s “green lung”, Valentino Park. This triggered the diplomatically phrased but firm response by the show’s president Andrea Levy, thanking Turin for its hospitality in the past, “creating an event of major success and turning the international spotlight on the city”.

Even Turin’s deputy mayor Guido Montanari twisted the dagger in the wound, saying he hoped that hailstorms would block this year’s last edition in Turin. An outraged Appendino called his statement “unspeakable” and says she is considering resignation.

Milan mayor Beppe Sala told media there was “no hostile attitude” towards Turin. But once the official documents on next year’s Salone are delivered, he said, we will of course be ready for talks.