Thousands pay last respects to Fiat's Agnelli

Thousands of Italians paid their last respects to Fiat chairman Umberto Agnelli yesterday, bowing to his coffin and greeting surviving members of the automaker's founding family.

Agnelli died on Thursday at 69, just 16 months after he took over as chairman as Fiat, finally emerging from the shadow of his more famous and gregarious older brother. His death raised questions about the commitment of one of Italy's most celebrated families to its major private employer.

"So ends a reign too brief to leave a lasting mark," the Italian newspaper La Repubblica wrote in one of many editorials splashed over the front pages of the country's dailies.

The famous and the humble lined up to pay their respects at the Fiat museum where the body of the man often referred to as "the other Agnelli" lay, flanked by vintage cars and banners from family football club Juventus and the city of Turin.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was also expected to arrive before evening when Agnelli's body will be laid in a family tomb at a private ceremony alongside that of his son, who died in 1997 at age 33, also of cancer.

John and Lapo Elkann, Gianni's grandchildren, are some of the few members of the dynasty who have gone into the business that Umberto's father founded.

Widely seen as too young to step into the driver's seat, they both greeted mourners as organ music played in the background. Just 16 months ago, Umberto stood by the coffin of his brother Gianni, also a victim of cancer, at a similar ceremony that drew an estimated 100,000 people.

The 105-year-old carmaker became a dynamo of Italy's post-war boom, and a magnet for labour unrest in the 1970s and 80s. Underinvestment in research and development, an ill-fated diversification binge and growing competition on the home turf it once dominated pushed it into its worst crisis in 2002.

Agnelli and new chief executive Giuseppe Morchio crafted a turnaround plan but despite narrowing losses and several new models, the long-term future of Europe's sixth-largest car maker in a world of automotive giants remains an open question.

Top candidates for the chairman's job include long-time family lawyer Franzo Grande Stevens and Gianluigi Gabetti, the chairman of Ifil, the holding through which the Agnellis control Fiat, soccer club Juventus and department store chain Rinascente. But both men are over Fiat's mandatory retirement age of 75, so their appointment would require a change in its bye-laws.