page_title: SEAT
section_title: Partnership with Fiat
hierarchical_section_title: SEAT / History / Partnership with Fiat
caption_attribution_description: English: SEAT 1400 B Español: SEAT 1400 B
context_page_description: SEAT, S.A. is a Spanish automobile manufacturer with its head office in Martorell, Spain. It was founded on May 9, 1950, by the Instituto Nacional de Industria, a Spanish state-owned industrial holding company. It quickly became the largest supplier of cars in Spain. In 1986, after 36 years being publicly listed as an independent automaker, the Spanish government sold SEAT to the German Volkswagen Group of which it remains a wholly owned subsidiary.
  The headquarters of SEAT, S.A. are located at SEAT's industrial complex in Martorell near Barcelona. By 2000, annual production peaked at over 500,000 units; in total up to 2006, over 16 million cars have been produced including more than 6 million from the Martorell plant, with three-quarters of the annual production being exported to over 70 countries worldwide.
  SEAT today is the only major Spanish car manufacturer with the ability and infrastructure to develop its own cars in-house.
context_section_description: The construction works for SEAT's Zona Franca plant began on 1950, and the opening day came 3 years later on June 5, 1953, while in the meantime since 1951, the Spanish marque was starting preparations for setting up almost from scratch an entire supplier industry background. The first car in the marque's history to be produced was a SEAT 1400 model that came off the production line on November 13, 1953, with licence plate B-87.223. In the following few months, the plant's production output and workforce significantly increased together with the implementation of locally made components in the production process,  to limit imports from one part and from another part to push to the development of the almost nonexistent Spanish supplier industry and meet SEAT's assigned key role as the national carmaker in restoring the Spanish economy of post–World War II Spain. By 1954, the use of Spanish-made parts had risen to 93% of the total, and next year on May 5, 1955, the factory was officially opened. Nevertheless, the impact to the Spanish society could not be seen clear immediately, since the first model launched by SEAT was considered a luxury car, so was highly priced and still not affordable to the average Spanish consumer. Consequently, SEAT needed a second, more economical model to compete against simpler, inexpensive designs that appeared in the local market, like the Biscúter, which seemed to suit better to the unwealthy customers looking for a personal mean of transport in a suffering economy.
  Until the time SEAT had the technical maturity and expertise to present its first self-developed model, the SEAT 1200 Sport in 1975, in its beginnings, the company had to manufacture either rebadged or restyled models borrowed from the range of its Italian partner Fiat Automobiles, or even redeveloped them according to the needs of its own range. However, the first example of a SEAT-exclusive derivative would arrive in September 1963 with the launch of the SEAT 800, a car developed in-house by SEAT with no equivalent model in Fiat's range on the basis of the SEAT 600 as a stretched version with four doors.
  In 1957 SEAT founded the SEAT Training Centre in the greater Zona Franca plant area, an institution covering the training of qualified personnel and serving the needs of the automobile industry in specialized technical human resources. In that same year,  the historical SEAT 600 was launched, which proved to be the crucial car that literally motorized Spain, being the first car for many Spanish families and becoming a symbol of the Spanish miracle.
  As the growth of the annual production was hitting one record after another due to the heavy demand, the economies of scale achieved permitted cutting costs and prices, subsequently renewing demand and boosting sales together with profits for SEAT. On June 29, 1964, the brand opened its new headquarters in Madrid, which hosted the firm's sole — up to 1972 — general administration offices. SEAT's plant manager was only in Barcelona until 1973,  when SEAT settled another general director in Catalonia.
  In 1967, 14 years after producing cars for the domestic market, SEAT's success was signaled by its dominant position in Spain, ahead of its major competitors, i.e. 'FASA-Renault', 'Citroën-Hispania', Authi, and Barreiros, making SEAT the Spain's largest automaker in sales numbers and a wholly localized production. In that year, an agreement between Fiat and the Spanish Ministry of Industry was reached so as to put an end in the restrictions over exporting SEAT cars from Spain, a term of the original licensee contract agreed with Fiat in 1948. In exchange for that, Fiat would increase its holding in the company from 7% to 36%, and at the same time the share held by the government holding agency would be reduced from a controlling 51% to 32%. The remaining 32% was taken by the six major Spanish banks, decreased from their previous 42% share split equally in 7% parts owned by every single one of them. Although not a majority owner, Fiat now was seen to control the business: the deal also inc
caption: SEAT 1400, the first model produced by SEAT in 1953.
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