Fiat Gm: The Agnellis Face Reality

It was almost like the dramatic final act of a play but without the main character. As the top brass of General Motors Corp. and Turin-based Fiat gathered in the Italian company's auditorium to announce their broad strategic alliance, the key player who signed off on the deal wasn't even there. Gianni Agnelli, the 79-year-old patriarch of Europe's most powerful industrial dynasty, was up in his fourth-floor office suite taping an interview for Italian television. He would leave it to others to announce the fate of the car company his grandfather and namesake had founded 101 years ago.

The deal itself may be just about cars. But the significance goes way beyond gear boxes, synergies, and joint marketing of automobiles. For Italy Inc. and the Agnelli dynasty that has dominated it for decades, the March afternoon in Turin marks the end of an era.