Fondmetal S.p.A.
Fondmetal's history began in 1970 at Palosco, a small community between Bergamo and Brescia.
The firm started as an aluminium foundry working for third parties and continued a family tradition. Already in 1908, Stefano Rumi's grand-grandfather had an iron foundry (Stefano Rumi, son of Gabriele the founder of Fondmetal, is the present owner of the company).
To begin with, Fondmetal concerned itself with the production of dissimilar pieces, but as time went on, the firm specialized more and more in the manufacture of parts for the car industry in response to customer demand and Mr Rumi's passion for cars and racing. At Palosco they made induction manifolds, water conduits, clutch bellhousing and oil sumps. In this way, Fondmetal ended up manufacturing important parts such as cylinder heads and engine blocks for Maserati Biturbo. The prestigious Modenese firm was, along with Fiat, Iveco, OM, Magneti Marelli and Same, among the most important customers during the 1970's.
However, all this was not enough to guarantee Fondmetal's absolute independence for Mr Rumi. It was still totally and absolutely bound to customer requirements during a sensitive period such as the time following the oil crisis.
The difficult time of the famous austerity period convinced Gabriele Rumi of the unavoidable necessity of launching its own product to save itself from inevitable dependence on the orders from third parties. This was a courageous decision which meant considerable and complicated efforts at reconversion and development of equipment, but this did not deter the Bergamascan firm.
The choice of product, because of its elective affinity with the world of cars, fell on alloy wheels and the new, substantial investments were made with the aim of presenting a high quality product to customers.
Precise characteristics have made Fondmetal a leader in the field of light alloy wheels for many years now: the high quality of its product (TÜV, ECE, NAD homologations), IATF 16949, UNI EN ISO 14001 and UNI EN ISO 9001 certification, technological mentality acquired on racing fields all over the world, state-of-the-art production, plants flexibility, reliability, speed.
