:ompetitive SEATs
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AT, the Spanish vehicle nufacturer, will be selling all, inexpensive vans and k-ups in the UK by 1987. !lowing the company's rich in the UK next month a limited but impressive ge of passenger cars, the ge of vehicles will grow isiderably.
)ne of the newcomers will the SEAT Marbella which 1 replace the current SEAT Ida. It will be available in guises: as a small car; a h-capacity van (known as Marbella Trans); and as a k-up/convertible.
:urrently all new SEATS powered by 1.2.1itre or -litre System Porsche lowintenance engines. But by time the Marbella Trans Marbella pick-up arrive the UK (around April 7) it is likely that SEAT I have completed work on ew fuel-efficient three-cyler engine which will proby be capable of returning re than 4.7 litres/100km mpg).
he company also has a -litre diesel engine which I be seen in SEAT pas senger cars next year. Diesel powered vans could follow.
Reading-based SEAT Concessionaires (UK) says that the Marbella Trans will have the same 500 kg-plus payload as the Fiat Fiorino. So far, the pick-up is something of a mystery, however. Juan Jose Diaz Ruiz, number two in the SEAT organisation, has described the vehicle as "a poor man's convertible", but it is thought that it will be much more than that.
An SEAT cars sold in the UK will have a two-year mechanical warranty, six-year anti-perforation warranty, and
two years' free recovery service. They are well equipped and are competitively priced — cheaper than virtually all comparable European and Japanese cars.
Having severed its links with Fiat, the company now works closely with Volkswagen. SEAT vehicles are built on the same production lines as Volkswagens.
"Our vehicles are German in character, Mediterranean in design," says Ruiz, who insists that they are built to "VW standards." Styling is by Guigiaro and Karmann.