Motorized Spain: From the Pioneers of Private Vehicles to the Seat 600

The pioneers of the automotive industry in Spain

The pioneering car manufacturers in Spain were concentrated in the Barcelona area. Textile entrepreneurs manufactured or imported the first motor vehicles at the end of the 19th century, more as a hobby than out of necessity. A few years later, the first Spanish company to create its own serial models was founded: Hispano-Suiza. Their vehicles were more associated with sport and recreation than utility, and they quickly gained popularity among the aristocracy, becoming symbols of the Belle Époque. Spanish cities witnessed the proliferation of new means of collective transport at the beginning of the 20th century, but private cars were still few and far between. All the same, the first infrastructures and urban buildings centred on the automobile were beginning to appear.

The motorisation of the administration and the armed forces

In the years leading up to the Spanish Civil War, the Hispano-Suiza company focused on the manufacture of diesel engines and vehicles for the armed forces. The incorporation of motorised vehicles was key in the course of the war in Spain, and their importance led to the creation of specific military bodies both during and after the war. The public administration also became motorised, and the first fleets of vehicles for civil use were created. The spectacular increase in the transport of passengers by road and the establishment of regular intercity and long-distance bus lines demanded the construction of new infrastructures such as bus stations.

SEAT: the Spanish automobile company

In 1949, the Francoist regime commissioned the National Institute of Industry (INI) to create a state-owned automobile company with the aim of motorising post-war Spain. The Sociedad Española de Automóviles de Turismo [Spanish Automobile Company] (SEAT) began its industrial activity in Barcelona’s Zona Franca in May 1953. The first chairman of the company was the military engineer José Ortiz Echagüe, who placed special importance on avant-garde design as part of the company’s brand identity and in its architecture. His son, the architect César Ortiz-Echagüe Rubió, together with a small group of young architects, designed a series of service buildings for SEAT with an avant-garde aesthetic that drew on international influences and was ground-breaking in the Spanish architectural panorama of the 1950s.

The SEAT 600 model

The creation of a national automobile industry responded to a clear need: there were hardly any private vehicles in the national territory. This foundational purpose behind the SEAT company was achieved with the introduction of the SEAT 600 model, its most emblematic vehicle. For the Francoist Regime, the 600 represented an excellent focal point for propaganda: the working class could gain access to a car and a house, symbols of finally leaving behind the hardship of the post-war period. The popularisation of the 600 model demanded the creation of SEAT subsidiaries in multiple Spanish cities and the opening of new factories.

A country on wheels

The popularisation of the private vehicle, through the SEAT 600, brought about a veritable revolution. The entire country had to be adapted to this invasion of vehicles with the implementation of new infrastructures both within cities, which underwent a rapid adaptation, and across the territory. Provincial roads and highways led to the birth of new services around them, such as petrol stations, motels, garages, service areas and roadside restaurants. The total freedom of movement for families, the improvement of working conditions and workers’ rights, and the new infrastructures made it possible for people to set out toward the coast and natural spaces on weekends and for their holidays.

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