Seat celebrates the 25th anniversary of its first world title with the iconic Seat Ibiza Kit Car

November 25, 1996, a historic milestone for Spanish motorsport and, in particular, for Seat, which managed to be crowned champion of the 2-Litre World Rally Cup, thereby achieving the first world title in the brand’s history.

Today, 25 years after that great event, we are pleased to bring back that emotional and great chapter of our history, in which the small Seat Ibiza Kit Car demonstrated what a brand like Seat was capable of achieving with a fairly limited budget, but with plenty of effort and heart.

A very close relationship

The world of rallying and Seat have been closely linked for many years in its history, as it was in these competitions that the brand built its name. Starting specifically from 1977, the year in which, at the Monte Carlo Rally, Zanini and Cañellas took third and fourth place with a Seat 124D Especial 1800.

A few years later, in 1995, Seat decided to return to rallying to make its product known around the world, choosing the Seat Ibiza GTi 16V for this purpose, with which the brand achieved great results that year, which motivated them to take the leap in 1996 to the FIA 2-Litre World Cup.

This competition had recently been created and had a more affordable regulation than the WRC, which led Seat to enter again with its Ibiza GTi 16V Gr.N, a front-wheel-drive vehicle with a two-litre engine producing 255 CV of power.

With these ingredients, the Ibiza managed to win a large number of trophies in the hands of “Chus” Puras, Ermin Weber and “Mia” Bardolet, allowing Seat to arrive at the final round of the season with strong chances of clinching the world title at the RAC Rally in Great Britain.

An effort rewarded

In that event, Harri Rovanperä and Ermin Weber secured fourth and fifth places in the category, which meant that Seat had become the winning brand of the FIA 2-Litre World Cup. A historic achievement, since as Vincenç Aguilera, president of Seat Sport during those years, put it, “We did not have the best car or the best budget, but together we were the best, and we also dreamed of the title, which is always something necessary in competition.”

Isidre López, who was part of the team at the time and now manages the brand’s great legacy of classic cars called Seat Históricos, spoke emotionally about how he fondly keeps this period in his memory, surprised that no less than 25 years have already passed.

No matter how much time has passed, Seat Sport is still with us but under another name: Cupra Racing. A company that maintains its DNA, competitiveness and excitement, taking part in the first multi-brand electric touring car championship, the PURE ETCR.