Inside SEAT: we go all the way into the kitchen of the Spanish brand

SEAT has launched a campaign to boost its brand image in Spain. Under the title Inside SEAT, the manufacturer is going to roll out a series of actions designed to show the general public what lies behind each of the millions of units that run across our country.

To address this, they have kicked off the Inside SEAT project, which aims to tell the general public where the brand comes from, but above all where it stands and where it is heading.

The idea came from Jürgen Stackmann, the brand’s president for three and a half years until October 2015, when he was promoted to global sales chief of the Volkswagen Group following the engine-cheating scandal. Once in the post, the executive quickly realised the true scale and capability of the SEAT brand, and also that it was not being sold properly, at least in Spain.

Thus, although global sales have grown steadily and production at the Martorell plant is running at its best pace ever, and even though the León has finally replaced the evergreen Ibiza as the model with the greatest weight in the brand’s volume, in our market the image of SEAT still seems more tied to its past as a maker of cheap cars than to its present as a producer of premium models such as the Audi Q3 or, soon, the Audi A1.

Nostalgia at the surface

The route begins at Hangar A-122 in the Zona Franca of Barcelona, a museum-like space that only guests invited by the brand can enter, a perfect place to recall that, very likely, almost everyone has some episode in their life featuring a SEAT.

From the 1400 to its cherished competition cars and concept cars, the brand keeps in these facilities a carefully curated and rich representation of models that, on the one hand, marked the beginning of mobility in Spain as we understand it today, with examples of iconic models such as the 600, the 850 or the 127, or as exotic as the Panda Papamobile created specifically for Pope John Paul II’s visit to Spain in 1982.

On the other hand, it recalls SEAT’s ability to develop stylish prototypes whose design features were later seen to anticipate those of production cars, not to mention the Ibiza that were world rally champions in the two-litre category (from 1996 to 1998), or the León TDIs that were unbeatable in the World Touring Car Championship (WTCC) in 2008 and 2009.

The Toledo was one of the great architects of the “TDI fever” in Spain

These milestones, however, came long after the separation of Fiat from SEAT’s shareholding back in the 1980s. This forced the systematic development of in-house models, starting with the controversial and saving SEAT Ronda (based on the Fiat Ritmo), with the efficient “System Porsche” engines that served as the basis for the range of the first generation of the SEAT Ibiza, until recently the brand’s commercial mainstay.

Survival, however, imperatively depended on securing a new technological partner that would provide SEAT with a solid base of engines. This came with the acquisition of the Spanish brand by Volkswagen, whose influence was quickly felt with the launch of the first SEAT Toledo, a family car with a large boot capacity and one of the drivers behind the explosion of the “TDI” engines.

Around the Toledo and the Ibiza a range began to take shape, with the Alhambra MPV at the top and the León in the mid-range completing an offering aimed squarely at the most representative segments of the market in the 1990s. Since then, SEAT has faithfully adapted to new trends, taking advantage of the synergies available in a consortium that shares the spotlight with brands as diverse as Lamborghini, Skoda, Audi, Bentley, Porsche and Volkswagen itself.

Having left behind models such as the Altea, Altea XL and SEAT Exeo MPVs and saloon (a saloon based on the Audi A4), SEAT currently offers the Mii (3- and 5-door) in the city car segment, the versatile Ibiza (3-door SC, 5-door and ST estate), the León compact (SC, 5-door and ST), the redefined Toledo (it returned to its original concept of an affordable car with a practical three-box saloon body with a tailgate and a large boot) and the Alhambra, a seven-seat segment D MPV. In the more immediate future, a new compact SUV is expected to meet the high demand for this type of vehicle, currently covered by the León X-Perience.

Quality in the air

The Martorell factory is one of the hallmarks of today’s SEAT. In operation since 1993, it boasts production figures of around 443,000 units a year, distributed to 75 countries, with roughly 20% going to the Spanish market.

During the visit to the facilities organised for the Inside SEAT day, we had the opportunity to see the assembly lines for the León and Ibiza, two models that share quality standards with the Audi Q3, which is also built at that plant, while the Mii, the Alhambra and the Toledo are produced in Slovakia, Portugal and the Czech Republic respectively.

Emotion and technology

The day ended with a short safe-driving course run by specialists from Fast Parc Motor in Castellolí, 25 kilometres from the SEAT factory. More than improving driving, though that too, the aim was to demonstrate the effectiveness of the safety devices fitted to the brand’s models, specifically the León, which is the main vehicle of the school, with special emphasis on the two most important ones, the anti-lock braking system ABS and the electronic stability control ESC, which the instructors could switch off at will on the school’s cars.

In the case of the first, the exercise involved an emergency stop with the road surface in the worst possible condition, with one side very slippery and the other with grip. The instructions were to accelerate decisively up to 60 km/h and, on reaching a reference point, to stamp fully on the brake and clutch pedals (the latter to disconnect the engine from the wheels and make the brakes’ job easier). In that situation, braking sharply in a car without ABS tends to make it spin towards the side with more grip until it stops. The behaviour changes radically with ABS engaged, since in the latest generation systems the trajectory set by the steering remains practically intact, even if you let go of the wheel.

You don’t appreciate it until you have done an emergency stop without ABS

For the ESC, the exercise consisted of following a track on a surface with low grip and applying the brake in a corner to provoke oversteer. With ESC engaged there is no need to correct with the steering wheel; instead, you must indicate at all times where you want to go, since on detecting the start of the skid the system selectively brakes the corresponding wheel (either the outside front or the inside rear, depending on whether we are oversteering or understeering) until the trajectory is recovered. Conversely, without this system, it is the driver’s hands and their ability to countersteer that will determine whether the car stays on the tarmac or not.

After several attempts at each exercise, the difference between having or not having electronic aids becomes clear, but the school’s instructors insisted above all on three basic concepts that, over time, tend to be overlooked: maintaining a correct driving position (body at 100º, reaching the end of the pedal travel with ease, wrist slightly ahead of the top of the steering wheel…), tensioning the seatbelt once fastened and placing the hands correctly on the wheel, avoiding crossing them when taking corners.