Auto News 5

With the economy on the verge of melting down, fuel prices at outrageous levels, and global warming threatening to torch your prized rhododendrons, it might be wise to look for a more economical car when the lease on your current Volkswagen Jetta ends. You could replace your Jetta with a Smart ForTwo, use about a third less fuel, and drive around with a smug smile on your face in the belief that your little car is saving the world. Then again, you'd have to throw out your significant other, find a new home for the dog, and sell the kids, because the Smart isn't big enough to carry all of you. Oh, the dilemma.

America's Marshall Plan footed the bill for rebuilding Fiat after World War II and helped tiny Alfa Romeo become a mass-market manufacturer. But Lancia, Italy's second-largest carmaker before the hostilities, had to fend mostly for itself. In those early days of the Cold War, the antifascist proclivities of Turin's Lancia were perceived as signs of incipient communism.