International companies actively use Spain to produce their cars. Moreover, Italians are believed to have laid the foundations of automobile production in this country in 1919, when FIAT opened a branch near Barcelona. Despite this, Spain has enough of its own car and truck models. Domestic companies such as Advanced Design Tramontana, Sociedad Española de Automóviles de Turismo, and others are well represented on the world market and offer worthy competition to foreign brands.
What are Spanish automobile brands?
Many brands fall into this category, including SEAT, Irizar, Tauro Sport Auto, Spania GTA, Tramontana, Aspid, Benimar, Hurtan, and Cupra. Also gone are the car companies that manufactured cars in Spain, such as Pegaso, Hispano-Suiza, and Abadal.
Spanish cars like Seat and Tramontana are famous worldwide. Spain also produces other equally recognizable brands.
SEAT
SEAT is a Spanish company and part of the German automobile concern Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft. Its name is an abbreviation of Sociedad Española de Automóviles de Turismo. The brand’s first car appeared in 1953, and it produced its two-millionth car in 1974. During this period, many racers in Spain moved to SEAT sports cars.
Fiat was the company’s first owner, but it refused to cooperate and, through inaction, forced the automaker to sign a contract with Volkswagen. The German group bought all SEAT’s shares in 1990.
Irizar
The bus direction in the Spanish automobile industry is represented by the company Irizar, named after its creator, Jose Francisco Irizar. He worked as a blacksmith but wanted to engage in passenger transportation, so he opened a business producing stagecoaches and carriages in 1889. After 37 years, the business passed to Jose’s sons. They began to produce buses and agricultural machinery.
Since the 1950s, the company has constantly produced new bus models. It later partnered with Carrozzeria Orlandi to achieve technological excellence. Currently, the Irizar lineup includes conventional, electric, hybrid, and integrated buses of various models.
Tauro Sport Auto
The Tauro Sport Autosports car brand entered the market in 2012 with the V8 Spider model. At the same time, it appeared two years earlier: its origins date back to 2010, when a group of Spanish entrepreneurs teamed up with a British racing car manufacturer. The company makes all its cars to order, so production is limited. Most of the work is done by hand.
Tauro Sport Auto’s headquarters are located in Valladolid. One of its founders, Pedro J Santos, currently heads the company. The main line of sports cars is called Tauro V8. This model is equipped with a Chevrolet LS3 V8 engine.
Spania GTA
Spania GTA designs and manufactures sports cars. The Spanish racing team GTA Motor Competición founded it, and the team now legally owns it. Domingo Ochoa founded and leads the company. The company’s key product is the GTA Spano. The first concept car of this series was presented to the public in 2010, and full-scale production began in 2013. Only 99 cars will be produced in the debut Spania GTA lineup.
Tramontana
The Tramontana brand belongs to the Spanish company Atelier Tramontana. The manufacturer is Advanced Design Tramontana, a private company founded in 1995. Josep Rubau founded it after working at Volkswagen. He decided to revive traditional car brands of the last century, so the Tramontana sports car has a 1930s design. The model suits race tracks and public roads, but is often collectible because of its limited-edition status (12 pieces per year). The car is finished in gold.
Aspid
The Aspid series is a proprietary product of IFR Automotive. Engineer Ignacio Fernandez founded the company in 2003 to create cars that combine the best qualities of racing and road transportation. The first model, the IFR Aspid, went on sale in 2009. IFR Automotive had another sports car, the GT-21 Invictus. Its debut was expected in 2013, but the project was closed before it could begin.
Benimar
Benimar is a well-known mobile home manufacturer founded in 1974. Its name combines Beni, the first letters of the coastal city of Benicarló (Benicarló), where the company was founded, and Mar, Spanish for “sea.” In 1978, the debut motorhome hit the market as the undisputed leader in its segment. From 1984 to 2002, the company operated as Ocarsa until the Trigano Group acquired it.
Hurtan
Juan Hurtado Gonzalez wanted to create the car of his dreams, a retro sports car. He realized this idea in the 1980s and, inspired by its success, opened his automobile production facility. Thus was born the company Hurtan Desarrollos SL, which introduced its first model, the Albaycín T2, in 1992. The family business is now based in Granada. It produces sports and electric cars with classic bodies. The founder’s son upholds tradition and continues to develop ultra-modern cars in the style of the 1950s.
Cupra
The brand was originally called SEAT Sport. It was founded in Abrera (Catalonia) in 1985 as a sports division of the Spanish automaker SEAT, part of the Volkswagen Group. The company specialized in producing competitive models for rally and other forms of racing. It won several FIA awards: three wins with the SEAT Ibiza Kit-Car in the World Rally Championship (three consecutive years from 1996 to 1998 inclusive), two awards with the SEAT León in the FIA World Touring Car Championship (in 2008 and 2009). In 2018, the parent company renamed the brand Cupra and made it independent.
Hispano-Suiza
The Hispano-Suiza car company was founded in 1904 by two Spanish entrepreneurs and one Swiss engineer, hence the choice of name (Hispano-Suiza means “Spanish-Swiss”). The company produced luxury cars until the war. Then it switched to producing aircraft engines, and in 1919 it returned to its original course.
In 1944, Hispano-Suiza became part of the ENASA group and focused on aerospace. It has twice tried to return to the automobile market: in 2010 and 2019. It introduced new models both times, but production started only on the second attempt. So the company can be considered revived in 2019.
Pegaso
The Pegaso automaker left the market in 1994 when Iveco acquired it. Before that, it was part of Enasa and produced sports cars, armored cars, tractors, omnibuses, and trucks. The company was founded in 1946. Its main industrial site was the old Hispano-Suiza plant. In the second half of the 20th century, it kept pace with the economic boom, producing many buses and trucks. After taking over Pegaso, Iveco used the brand for several years.
Abadal
Racecar driver Francisco Abadal founded the Abadal company in 1912 to produce the fastest luxury car. Soon after it opened, Buick bought the company out. In 1923, the Abadal brand withdrew from the market and ceased production. General Motors planned to revive it: in 1930, they even built a prototype of the Abadal Continental, but never produced it.