Maybe it’s me. Maybe I am a bad omen for car companies. The fact is that, as I was growing up in Italy, two famous marques – the mythical Alfa Romeo and the more humdrum but no less beloved Innocenti – hit financial troubles and were swallowed by Fiat. I then moved to the UK just in time to the see the curtain fall on 11 decades of domestic carmaking. When MG Rover joined Jaguar and Aston Martin (“The name is Bond, Junk Bond”) on the list of bust brands that were fire-sold to foreigners, I knew it was time to move.

Since arriving in the US I have been searching for the American expression for “déjà vu”. Detroit’s big three have been getting smaller by the day as rising petrol prices and a slowing economy keep consumers away from their gas-guzzling monsters. Hampered by huge healthcare and pension liabilities, General Motors, Ford and Chrysler are burning cash faster than you can say “SUV”. With the US economy heading into a recession, one does not need to be an Alfa or Jaguar historian to realise that Detroit is staring into the abyss of potential bankruptcies.