Fiat/Chrysler CEO Marchionne gets his point across -- but angers some listeners.
Fiat/Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne has apologized for using what some took as an offensive term for Italian-Americans during the Detroit Auto Show last January.
Describing his frustrations with the slow effort to return the Alfa Romeo brand to the U.S. market, Marchionne said the new 4C sports car didn’t have the right powertrain yet, adding that, “With all due respect to my American friends, it needs to be a wop engine.”
The term was meant to convey the desire to have a distinctly Italian engine for the little Alfa – which ultimately won approval from Marchionne a few weeks later.
The term is often used playfully among Italian Americans themselves, much as other racist and derogatory slurs, such as the proscribed “n-word” for blacks. The origin is a subject of frequent debate and may actually have come from a Spanish term spelled guapo but pronounced “wopo,” or “hwopo,” according to some linguists. Others point to the Italian “guappo,” a term for a “ruffian” or “swaggerer.”
Whatever the root, while Marchionne’s comment drew titters during a media roundtable – and did get his point across – it also drew some sharp criticism. The Italian-American One Voice Coalition, a group aimed at responding to ethnic slurs, had been demanding an apology from Marchionne for months.
And now it has gotten one, the blunt-talking CEO directing it at “anyone who might have been offended” by his remarks.
“We felt it was a very heartfelt apology, Sebastian D’Elia, a spokesperson for the One Voice Coalition, told The Detroit Free Press.
Apparently, not everyone was quite so upset. Even before he issued his mea culpa, Marchionne was already scheduled to receive honors from another ethnic group, the Sons of Italy Foundation.
While born in Chieti, Italy in June 1952, Marchionne’s emigrated to Toronto, Ontario when he was 14. He received several degrees “north of the border,” including an MBA from the University of Windsor. He started his professional career in Canada with the accounting firm Deloitte and Touche, and only moved to his familial homeland in 2003, when he joined Fiat. He became its CEO in 2004.
The executive frequently refers to himself as a Canadian and even pronounces his name MAR-chee-own, rather than the traditional Italian way of MAR-Kee-oh-nay.
As a member of the One Word coalition, I think that Italian-Americans have the solution to this whole mess: fuggedaboutit.
This is a lot of nonsense by the PC police, IMO. The comment obviously was not a slur in any way shape or form but someone will always find a means to get attention when they are insignificant.
I believe from relatives, that the term WOP is actually an acronym. Often times immigrants to America coming through Ellis Island, many of them Italians didn’t have all the appropriate documents and were segregated out with the notation W.O.P. on their lapel (Without Papers). It became a derogatory term associated with Italian Americans.
“Marchionne said the new 4C sports car didn’t have the right powertrain yet, adding that, “With all due respect to my American friends, it needs to be a wop engine”
The engine-of-the-year for the 2010 was the MultiAir of FIAT.
The engine-of-the-year for the 2011 was the TwinAir of FIAT.
If the US inventor Ralf Miller, the inventor and patentee of the Miller Cycle, were alive
Miller would say:
Marchionnee…eeee, wake up,
order the chief engineer of your FIAT Powertrain,
to run the MultiAir and TwinAir engines
ON the Miller CYCLE,
i.e. ON this:
http://www.pattakon.com/pattakonHydro.htm
CYCLE ,
Your Chief engineer runs these nice DIGITAL engines
on just the WRONG CYCLE.
Just turn the engine CYCLE Upside-DOWN
to get an engine with a mileage twice as long as YOURS (the FIAT’ s).