LINGOTTO STORY

TAMAS  L’ORANT  TL: 026

Mechanism: Patek Philippe ~1929~

Luigi looked at the Patek Phillipe on his office desk. The golden second hand had just passed the fifty-second mark. Luigi smiled. He was proud that it was enough for him to have one of the world’s most precise watches so that by knowing the distance traversed and the time elapsed, he could calculate the speed precisely.

Having a watch like this was important for Luigi for another reason, too. There was a break in testing several times a week, and at such times Luigi would adjust his tie, put the watch back on its golden chain, and walk out onto the test track to greet the scheduled illustrious guests. Kings and celebrities would come to take a look at the Lingotto FIAT factory and, above all, its main attraction, the track on the roof.

The golden Patek was perfect formal wear at such times, as many famous visitors had the same.

When, three years earlier, in 1935, one of Fiat’s Romanian partners had gifted Luigi with this watch, Luigi presumed that the company founder, old Giovanni Agnelli, had had a say in this. Getting a watch like this directly from headquarters in Turin would have meant the company’s gratitude at the end of Luigi’s career at Fiat.

The phone rang. It was Luigi’s wife, Oana. The woman did not say a thing into the receiver, but Luigi knew who was calling. And why.

“Your draft notice has arrived, Luigi.” Oana started to cry immediately, but Luigi could not hear that, due to the buzzing of the Fiat Topolinos droving by his window just then.

***

Luigi returned from the war. Thanks to Oana, even the Patek Philipe survived. His wife had not let him sell it, though they lost almost everything in the war. Luigi even returned to Fiat, as a section head in the sales department. But he missed the ramp, his office just a few meters from the test track, the deadening noise of the cars. And the sight that always greeted him as a dozen new vehicles, as if projected on a slanted movie screen, turned back on the steep curve and he glanced at the second hand of his Patek Phillipe pocket watch and knew their speed.

The Lingotto building closed its doors in 1982. The famous factory no longer had a purpose. The late Luigi’s old pocket watch wound up in a circle of collectors around the same time, no longer used.

But Lingotto was soon revived. The remodeled building now had a new life as a cultural and commercial center. But that oval racetrack on the roof remained intact. The legendary car factory found its place in the present.

So it also was with Luigi’s golden Patek Philippe, which became a one-off wristwatch that showed the time with the same punctuality and elegance as it had eight-five years before.