Seat Celebrating 60 Years Since It Started Building Cars

SeatSeatSpain, 1950 > present29 models
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is celebrating 60 years in building cars. The first Seat 1400 left its factory in Barcelona’s Zona Franca on November 13, 1953. Production at the time was just five cars per day. From 1953 to 1964 when production of the 1400 ended, Seat had built 98,000 units.

The 1400 was built for Spanish government officials that needed transport and for use as a taxi. Prices started at 121,875 pesetas (€41,735 today). After a year of production, Seat had built 945 cars. In June 1954, Seat showed the car at the Barcelona Trade Fair and opened sales to all buyers; prices fell to 117,000 pesetas (39,648 euros).

The 1400 was offered as a four-door sedan, wagon, seven-seater and delivery van. It used 1.4-liter engine originally designed by FiatFiatItaly, 1899 > present159 models
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with a four-speed manual transmission. Power ranged from 44hp to 58hp as improvements were added over the course of production.

Production grew each year to eventually hit 42 cars a day. Production ended in 1964, and the successor had already been introduced in the Seat 1500 in 1963.

As of now, Seat has built more than 16 million cars and has exported 80% of them out of Spain.