Currently reading: Seat's sports car plans on hold
Firm needs to increase production at its Martorell plant before launching new models

Seat’s plans to launch its own sports car have been put on hold while it sorts out production capacity issues at its Martorell plant.

All Seat models bar the Alhambra are built at the factory and it is currently only running at 50 per cent capacity. A Seat source told Autocar that these issues would needed to be sorted out before new models, including a sports car and its Tribu concept, could be considered for production.

“A sports car is definitely something we’d like to do,” said the source, “but we need to get our volumes up and sell more of the cars we’ve already got before we start thinking about new models.”

The source said Seat’s new president, James Muir, who recently joined the firm from Mazda Europe, had the company at his disposal and developing more sports models was one direction the company could go.

“We’re a young, sporty and design-led brand,” said the source. “That’s what Seat stands for; in any sector we’re in, we want to be the sportiest, so something like a sports car makes sense for us.”

Mark Tisshaw

mark-tisshaw-autocar
Title: Editor

Mark is a journalist with more than a decade of top-level experience in the automotive industry. He first joined Autocar in 2009, having previously worked in local newspapers. He has held several roles at Autocar, including news editor, deputy editor, digital editor and his current position of editor, one he has held since 2017.

From this position he oversees all of Autocar’s content across the print magazine, autocar.co.uk website, social media, video, and podcast channels, as well as our recent launch, Autocar Business. Mark regularly interviews the very top global executives in the automotive industry, telling their stories and holding them to account, meeting them at shows and events around the world.

Mark is a Car of the Year juror, a prestigious annual award that Autocar is one of the main sponsors of. He has made media appearances on the likes of the BBC, and contributed to titles including What Car?Move Electric and Pistonheads, and has written a column for The Sun.

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TegTypeR 3 December 2009

Re: Seat's sports car plans on hold

This is a catch 22 situation. To be a "sporty and youthful" brand you really need to have a sports car in the range. Classic case of SEAT needing a halo effect car to improve sales.