Ram Owners Manuals Being Translated Into Italian

As you all know, Fiat is working to obtain 100% ownership of Chrysler-Jeep-Ram this year. As negotiations continue, Fiat is beginning to prepare for 100% ownership in a few ways:

1. They’re continuing to restructure their holdings in Europe in an effort to balance world-wide manufacturing capacity
2. They’re holding “Lavoratore Indottrinamento” management meetings at all key facilities, with the aim of breaking down cultural barriers between American and Italian executives, engineers, and plant managers
3. Most incredibly, they’re working furiously to translate all Chrysler, Jeep, and Ram vehicle owners manuals into Italian, so that manuals can be printed in both languages by the end of the year.

Why, you ask, must owner’s manuals be in both English and Italian? There’s a little-known Italian law that mandates all Italian corporations must produce consumer materials in Italian, even if the materials aren’t for Italian consumers.

The law – known as “L’italiano è la lingua migliore mai” – was originally designed to keep Italian corporations from printing owners manuals, warranty agreements, etc., exclusively in French or English, a common problem in the early 90’s when Italy’s economy was an export powerhouse.

Today – 20 years later – this law is out-dated and unnecessary. However, because this law applies to ALL products produced by Italian companies, Chyrsler, Jeep, and Ram owners are going to have to shuffle a few more pages after the first of the year.

We’ve obtained an example of the owner’s manual translation – check it out:

Italian translation of page from Ram 1500 owner’s manual

What do you think? Is this bonkers or what?

Do you think a lot of Ram owners wish they didn’t have to buy Italian pickup trucks?