The Fabbrica Italiana Automobile Torino (Italian Torino car factory), one of Europe's biggest car industries, and it was in World War I one of Italy's main suppliers of ground-based and aviation machine guns, mostly of Revelli designs.

After World War, FIAT created in 1926 a subsidiary devoted exclusively to machine guns, that was the Societa Anonima Fabrica Armi Torino, or anonymous society Torino guns factory, mostly known as its abbreviated S.A.F.A.T designation.

The first aircraft machine gun produced by S.A.F.A.T was the M1928, a scaled-up variant of the M1926 with a belt feed and increased rate of fire.

Worth to mention that the "8mm FIAT" designation was in fact a fancy name for the 7.7x56R cartridge (.303 British).

It was proven unreliable as sometimes the case ruptured with remains left in the chamber and difficult to synchronize, so it was replaced by the better Breda SAFAT designs.