This Thursday, August 3, marks the 50th anniversary of the manufacture of the last Seat 600, the car that marked the history of Spain and that took the middle classes on vacation, becoming one of the pillars of economic developmentalism in the 1960s.
Known as the “pelotilla”, for its rounded shape, or the “navel”, because everyone had one, this utility was so popular that it even had a song.
“Go ahead man of the 600, the national highway is yours”, said the chorus of a song by Moncho Alpuente, an ode to the “metal horse”, as he described the 600, the Sunday-goers, the weekends and the first caravans .
The person in charge of Historic Seats, Isidre López, believes that the 600 is the most “mythical” car in the history of Seat and probably in the whole country, because it is the one that contributed to the “massive mobility” of many families that with it could traveling to town or to the beach in summer, with the car full of children and the roof rack overflowing with suitcases.
“The Seat 600 has marked the history of Spain, it was a symbol of developmentalism and was key to understanding how Spanish society evolved. It created the culture of the weekend and made it easier for many people to see the sea for the first time, travel around Europe and for the emigrants to return to the town on vacation,” explains López.
It also contributed to creating the much-feared caravans on Sundays, but, above all, “the 600 helped improve people’s quality of life, providing extra mobility, which also allowed access to jobs that were further from home , at a time when public transport was quite precarious”.
For this reason, a car “capable of mobilizing a country on wheels” was manufactured. A utility made to carry 4 approved people, “although sometimes the number of occupants doubled what is allowed”, with a top speed of 100 km/h, which used little fuel and was very economical. “It was an invention that helped make things better and increase society’s aspirations,” says López.
When the first Seat left the Martorell (Barcelona) factory in 1957, it cost about 65,000 pesetas, about 390 euros, which represented the salary of three and a half years. For the citizen of that time, an expensive car.
However, the price quickly became more affordable as society increased its purchasing power, and in the 1960s the demand was such that there were two-year waiting lists to get the vehicle. “Some even couldn’t even choose the color and had to wait until the day of delivery to see which one they got.”
An important part of the success of the car came from the arrival of purchases in installments, the famous “letters” of the time, which in 1971 made it easier for 25% of the cars that circulated on Spanish roads to be Seat 600s.
According to Isidre López, the car was named taking into account the relationship between the engine displacement, 633 cubic centimeters, and the weight of the vehicle, about 575 kilos. The mean of these measurements was “plus or minus 600.”
At that time, each country had its emblematic car, “the protagonist of mass mobility. “In England it was the Mini; in France, the Citroën two horses, in Germany, the Beetle, and here the 600”.
During the 16 years in which the 600 was manufactured, some 800,000 units were produced, “a milestone for the time” and practically almost all of them were sold in Spain.
However, the person in charge of historic cars at Seat recalls the anecdote that in the 1960s a special export to Colombia was carried out in which cars were exchanged for coffee from that country.
And it is that then, Seat, which today belongs to the Volkswagen group, was part of the disappeared National Institute of Industry and was a national company.
With the passing of time, the 600 ended up becoming an obsolete car with old technology. For this reason, on August 3, 1973, the mythical utility stopped being manufactured.
At that time, the automobile company had more than 30,000 workers and was already the leading company in Catalonia -since it maintains now, although it has a little more than 14,000 employees-, due to the fact that at that time, practically all the components except the tires and light bulbs They were manufactured in the Martorell factory.
Today there are still some 10,000 units of the 600 circulating and there are more than a hundred clubs dedicated to this car that organize outings, meetings and excursions every weekend.
Despite its age, it is not a difficult car to maintain, since its mechanics are simple and its price, in good condition, can be over 10,000 euros.
Isidre López recalls that when families made long journeys, they often had to stop because the car overheated and that is because tap water was used whose limescale ended up clogging the radiator and impairing its operation by 40 or 50%.
At the Seat headquarters, the penultimate copy that left the production chain is kept like a real treasure, after a commercial mistake led to the sale of the last car that was manufactured.
Among the relics that are kept in Seat is an old film of the entire assembly line of the latter 600 in which employees can be seen with a sign that reads: “you were born a prince and you die a king.”
