The New York Times gives us a glimpse into the success of the UK based but foriegn owned MINI and the failures of Italian based and owned Fiat:

To the casual observer, the sprawling BMW car plant outside this quaint university town appears to be much like the main plant of the Fiat group outside Turin, Italy. At each factory, shiny new cars roll leisurely along assembly lines dominated by giant twisting robots and automated welders that spray sparks like New Year's fireworks.

But the similarity ends there. The deeper contrasts between the two factories capture in microcosm the heady revival of British carmaking under foreign ownership, and the crisis facing Fiat, which has no foreign-owned rivals in its home market.

BMW spent $500 million to overhaul the Oxford plant, and began producing a new version of the Mini Cooper here in 2001. The tiny car has been a big success, and more than 200,000 of them have been shipped all over the world, including almost 33,000 to the United States. The Minis helped propel Britain's total output of cars to 1.8 million last year, 8 percent more than in 2001, virtually all of them built by foreign-owned companies.

In Turin, Fiat's big Mirafiori plant churns out six different models of Fiat, Lancia and Alfa Romeo cars. Even though the company has the Italian market largely to itself it is struggling. Demand for its cars is weak, and the company has been forced to sell nonautomotive assets to raise cash to revamp its car business…

Things were not always like this. In the 1970's, Britain's carmakers were an endangered species. Their factories were old, British labor unions were merciless, and the industrial policies of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher ruled out any resort either to subsidies or to protective trade barriers. Venerable brands ultimately died out or were sold to foreigners, like Jaguar to Ford Motor and Rover and Rolls Royce to BMW.

Meanwhile, Italy coddled Fiat. A bilateral accord with Tokyo limited Japanese imports to 3 percent of the Italian market. The government was generous with subsidies, and actively discouraged foreign investment. Of Europe's major economies, only Italy is completely devoid of auto plants not owned by a domestic company.

You can read the entire article here (free New York Times registration required). (Thanks Geoff for the link)