GO TO TOPGEAR.COM FOR MORE MIND-BLOWING MANUFACTURER GUIDES
What is Seat and when did it start making cars?
Spanish carmaker Seat is relatively young, established in 1950. Unlike some brands which can trace their roots back to a single founder in a tiny workshop, Seat’s birth was less romantic.
It was set up by a state-owned financing company, and had almost taken off in the aftermath of civil war in the late Thirties, but with that conflict closely followed by World War Two, those ambitions were put on hold.
Seat – which stands for Sociedad Española de Automoviles de Turismo, or the Spanish Touring Car Company – was established in May 1950, following a deal with Fiat to bring its experience and know-how to the table. The first car came three years later in the shape of the Seat 1400, a rebadged Fiat 1400 built in Barcelona.
All early Seats were based on Fiats, it wasn’t until 1963 that Seat would offer a car – the 800 – without an Italian equivalent. Even this was just a long-wheelbase version of a Fiat-derived model, and another 12 years would pass before Seat could claim to have developed something – the 1200 Sport – entirely on its own.
The Fiat relationship lasted until 1982, when Seat was sold to Volkswagen. The German multinational still owns Seat today, and as a result its
