All you need to know about Seat
DATE OF BIRTH: 1950 NATIONALITY: Spanish
THE STORY: Although widely believed to have been largely FIAT-owned, the Italians only held 7 per cent of the shares when SEAT was set up by the Spanish state-owned National Institute of Industry along with a consortium of banks. FIAT did, however, have the manufacturing licence, and all the cars were based on the Italian maker's models. The first, a 1400, rolled out in 1953, and the production rate was five cars a day. By 1961, and production of the 600 was around 100 cars a day. The soon-to-become ubiquitous SEAT 1500 quickly tripled that rate. Exports began in 1969, and in 1971 SEAT became Spain's largest industrial company.
FIAT, with its great business sense, spotted the potential for growth at SEAT and quickly pulled out in 1980. SEAT began developing its own cars - Ibiza and Malaga being models. In 1982, an alliance with VW allowed building and marketing of VW and Audi cars and in 1990, VW bought out the remaininder of the company. Since then, with models like the Toledo, Ibiza, and sexy concepts such as the Salsa, the SEAT division has earned a strong reputation for having the best styling flair in the VW Group. Last year, SEAT built 424,000 cars. SEATs have been imported into Ireland since 1985.
BEST CAR: The current Ibiza, which shows the German parent how the Polo should be styled, and the 130bhp turbodiesel how to do it sportily.
WORST CAR: The Malaga, which had the style of the FIAT Regata, along with all the faults of the original.
WEIRDEST CAR: SEAT doesn't do weird, but its little Racer from the 2001 Frankfurt Show is close to wonderful.