The Fiat factory in Turin that has a test track on the roof

This is the old Fiat factory test track on top of a building in Turin, Italy / Wikimedia commons

13 June 2019, 14:31

Turin is a beautiful Italian city with famous landmarks like the Palazzo Reale and the Mole Antonelliana, but if you’re looking for unusual or alternative things to do in Turin, try the Fiat Lingotto Factory. This car factory has now closed down but it was where they made Fiat cars from 1923-1982. The Lingotto building has since been renovated and turned into a commercial complex with hotels and a shopping mall, and you can visit it and see its most unique feature – a race track on the roof!

The Fiat Lingotto Factory was built in 1916 by architect Giacomo Mattè-Trucco, and was designed in a very special way that allowed every step of the car-making process to be carried out there. It was close to the train tracks so that raw materials could be delivered straight to the door and manufacturing work on the Fiats would start on the lower floors. The factory has a winding, internal ramp so that the cars could be driven up successive floors as they moved along the various stages of production. Finally, the finished cars would be taken to the top floor – the roof of the building where there is a test track for the cars to be road tested before they were taken to the showrooms to be sold.

The building's ramp, which was used to transport cars up to the roof of the old factory / Wikimedia commons

You may recognise this distinctive Fiat test track on top of the building from a scene in the 1969 film ‘The Italian Job’ with Michael Caine, which was filmed in Turin. One of the shooting locations for the chase scene with the Minis near the end was the Turin Fiat factory.

How to get to the Fiat factory rooftop

Unfortunately, you can’t drive around the test track but you can go up and visit it. Head to the enormous Lingotto building right next to the Lingotto metro station.

You will have to take a lift inside the Pinacoteca Agnelli art museum to get up to the roof, for which the entrance fee is around 8 euro. Once you get up there, the view of the city of Turin is fantastic and the test track itself is an impressive feat of architectural engineering.

There is no tour or anything that really commemorates the halcyon days of the Fiat factory circa 1929, but if you want to find out more about Turin’s car manufacturing industry you can go to the nearby Automobile Museum, the Museo Nazionale dell'Automobile, which is one of the best museums to visit in Italy.