Produced by Ferroni Cortometraggi, directors Aldo De Sanctis and Giampiero Pucci made a short film on Ansaldo’s activities in Genoa: its shipyards, mechanical and railway plants, and its foundry. Founded in 1853 by a group of Genoese entrepreneurs and financiers, Ansaldo was to become the historical heart of Italian capitalism, experiencing first the consequences of militarisation during the war years, then crisis and reconversion in peacetime. The film bears witness to the climate of recovery in which the Finmeccanica project was born.

Designed by Orazio Satta Puliga, the Alfa Romeo 1900 became famous with the slogan: ‘The family car that wins races.’ The new saloon came with a series of firsts and innovations. It was the first Alfa Romeo with a monocoque body integrated into the chassis and a four-cylinder twin-camshaft engine that would feature in production models over the following years. It was also the first to adopt a left-hand drive as standard. These were years of economic upheaval and innovation, the effects of which were also clear in a change to the production process at the Portello factory in Milan with the introduction of the assembly line. On 5 May 1953, Giuseppe Luraghi, the company’s vice-president, discussed ‘Programme ‘53’ with IRI and Finmeccanica, a project to upgrade the industrial plants, assemble a management team, and outline a strategy to enable Alfa Romeo to generate a profit that could be reinvested for market growth.

The Italian liner fleet’s largest and fastest passenger ship was launched on 16 June 1951 at the Ansaldo shipyard in Genoa Sestri Ponente, commissioned by the Finmare group’s Italia Società di Navigazione shipping company. This turbine-powered ship, with a gross tonnage of around 30,000 tonnes, carried 1,241 passengers and a crew of 580. Much admired for her elegance, the ‘Andrea Doria’, nicknamed the ‘Signora del Mare’, was known abroad as the ‘Grande Dame of the Sea’. On 14 January 1953, she set sail from the Port of Genoa for New York. Just over three years after her maiden voyage, she sank off the US coast in an accident involving the Swedish ship Stockholm on the night of 25 July 1956.

On 22 May 1952, Agusta signed an agreement with the American Bell Aircraft Corporation to build a new concept helicopter, the Bell 47, under licence for the European market. In May of the following year, Agusta became a joint-stock company with only 66 employees. Exactly two years later, on 24 May 1954, the company’s first helicopter, the Agusta-Bell 47G, flown by test pilot Ottorino Lancia, took off from the runway at Cascina Costa di Samarate (Varese). Orders soon arrived from military and civil customers alike, and, two years later, the company had already delivered 100 helicopters to operators across Europe.

This was a record order, worth eight billion Lire, for 300 TPS-1D naval sighting radars for the US Navy, which Microlambda manufactured under licence from Raytheon in the workshops of the former Silurificio Italiano (Italian torpedo factory) in Fusaro, near Naples. On 30 April, the first four radars passed stringent tests under the supervision of Franco Bardelli. Over the next two months, with a ramping-up of production, the order was fulfilled well ahead of schedule. The industrial rise and economic recovery of an entire region resumed as a result of this success.

Developed experimentally at the Cantieri Riuniti dell'Adriatico in Monfalcone (Trieste) in June 1952, the MC 490 - the first convertible motor gunboat - was launched in 1954 and entered service with the Italian Navy the following year. Its design saw several modifications over the years, especially in the type and size of its weaponry, leading to the production of a series of MC-491-492 gunboats that were later denominated ‘Lampo’ and ‘Baleno’. It reached its peak performance in 1962-63 with more powerful engines. It was denominated the ‘Folgore’ in 1965 and remained in service until 1976, being used in training activities alongside other, more recently built gunboats.

Aerfer manufactured this all-Italian experimental light fighter at Pomigliano d’Arco (Naples). Designed by the engineer Sergio Stefanutti for a NATO tender later won by the FIAT G.91, the Sagittario II flew from Pratica di Mare military airport on 4 December 1956 piloted by Lieutenant Colonel Giovanni Franchini, breaking the speed of sound.

On 7 December, the Ansaldo shipyard in Genoa Sestri Ponente launched a new ocean liner, the ‘Leonardo da Vinci’, for the shipping company Italia Società di Navigazione, to replace the ‘Andrea Doria’ which had sunk in a tragic accident two years previously. In service from 30 June 1960, it was a luxurious and fast ship, designed and built using all the latest engineering advances of the era. Architects such as Luccichenti, Monaco, Zoncada and Pulitzer worked on its sinuous and functional lines, while artists including Casorati, Turcato, Cagli, Vedova and Petrolini were commissioned for its design and furnishings. With a capacity of 1,326 passengers, it was the first ship to boast a private bathroom and air conditioning in every cabin. It was used for scheduled voyages between Italy and the United States before being decommissioned in 1976.

Meteor, a light aircraft manufacturer founded in 1947, entered a new sector in the late 1950s by developing and producing uncrewed aircraft built of composite materials. These were for use as aerial targets for training land and naval artillery and reconnaissance missions. The role of the Meteor P.1 was therefore to test Italian anti-aircraft weapon systems at the Salto di Quirra Interforce Firing Range in Sardinia. Propeller-powered, with a four-cylinder 120 hp Alfa engine, the Meteor P.1 was controlled from a ground station. It was then picked up by helicopter divers once it had ditched into the sea by parachute. This Remotely Piloted Vehicle (RPV) was the first of several versions that marked the beginning of a tradition of excellence in the sector that Meteor transferred to Finmeccanica on its acquisition in 1988.