Seat S.A.

Seat S.A. (proper spelling: SEAT) is a car manufacturing company founded in 1950 and based in Martorell. Today it belongs to Volkswagen AG.

Seat was founded on 9 May 1950 as Sociedad Española de Automóviles de Turismo, S.A. ("Spanish Touring Car Company") in Barcelona's Zona Franca industrial park. The 600 million pesetas were financed 51 per cent by the state-owned umbrella organisation Instituto Nacional de Industria under Francoism, 42 per cent by Spanish banks and seven per cent by Fiat. After the opening of the plant on 5 June 1953, the first car, a Seat 1400 based on the Fiat 1400, rolled off the production line of the state-owned car factory on 13 November.

In 1982, a co-operation with Volkswagen AG began, which gradually developed into a complete takeover of Seat by Volkswagen by 1986. Seat has been part of the Volkswagen Group since 1986.

All vehicles up to 1984 were licence productions of the Fiat Group and therefore almost identical to models of the Fiat and Lancia brands. The bodies were therefore also largely identical. Seat continued to largely pursue this concept later on with the production of the Exeo (Audi A4), Toledo (Škoda Rapid) and Alhambra (VW Sharan) models.