Top management of Fiat today presented the Group’s sponsorship of the G8 Summit in L’Aquila to the Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi. Present at the meeting, held at Palazzo Chigi, were the Under Secretaries to the Prime Minister, Gianni Letta and Paolo Bonaiuti, as well as the Chairman of Fiat Group, Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, the Deputy Chairman, John Elkann, and the Chief Executive Officer, Sergio Marchionne.

As a symbol of the Fiat Group’s support for the G8, the Prime Minister was presented with an Executive version of the Lancia Delta, made to the most exacting standards of comfort and driveability and recently chosen as the Official Car of the 9th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates.

Concrete operational support for the Summit, which will be held on July 8, 9 & 10 at the Guardia di Finanza’s Camp Coppito, will consist of an entire fleet of vehicles – consisting of 221 passenger cars, electric vehicles, off-road vehicles, commercial vehicles and buses – being made available to the Department of Civil Defence by Fiat Group for transportation of the participants at the G8 Summit.

The fleet will consist of: 90 Lancia Deltas, 85 Fiat Professional light commercial vehicles, 10 Iveco Massif off-road vehicles and an array of electric vehicles, including an Iveco Daily, two Iveco Europolis buses and 33 "GEM e4" vehicles produced by Global Electric Motorcars, part of the Chrysler Group. A large part of this fleet has already been employed over the past few months at the preparatory ministerial sessions leading up to the Summit which are being held in various cities around Italy on specific topics such as labour, agriculture, the environment, economic development, justice and internal affairs, science and technology, finance and foreign affairs.

With the exception of the electric vehicles, which will be used within the Camp compound's area, all the other vehicles will be used to transfer delegates to and from airports and the L’Aquila heliport. The entire fleet will be managed 24 hours a day by specialised Fiat Group personnel who will provide assistance and maintenance services, including for the armoured Lancia Thesis vehicles already in use by the Italian government.