IDRIVEACLASSIC reviews: 70s SEAT 127 (yes, it's a rebadged FIAT 127!)

If like me, you struggle to hear sometimes, I've popped the walk around chat below

It’s so exciting to show you the SEAT 127 today, because not only is this a very rare car in England, it’s also the first SEAT to ever feature on IDRIVEACLASSIC.

Personally, I didn’t know an awful lot about SEAT and wanted to share this with you to add some context to this, what is essentially, a rebadged FIAT 127.

So SEAT, a Spanish car manufacturer, was founded in May 1950 and was originally an idea coined by a Spanish bank and was later taken over by a state owned industrial holding company.

The idea was this: Spain needed, or certainly wanted, their own mass production car manufacturer to boost the home market and potentially at some stage compete in wider Europe.

Progress on the idea had been slow due to World War Two and recovery from the Spanish Civil War and therefore Spain had no real experience in mass production cars and therefore looked to go into business with a foreign partner.

Which meant that when SEAT was founded, it was with a deal with FIAT already confirmed, which hopefully helps explain the SEAT/FIAT rebadging exercise on this car.

Going back to the car itself, the SEAT 127 is a fantastic little front wheel drive super mini in an era where the super mini was starting to gain real traction and become an attractive choice - which was only heightened by the oil crisis of the 70s.

The cars were made for a solid ten years between 1972 and 1982 and made in Spain exclusively to supply the Spanish market - the FIAT 127 was the car which would’ve been available to the non Spanish buyer.

Although the car we’re testing is the 903cc engine which was a FIAT engine as fitted to the FIAT 127, SEAT did design a slightly larger engine 1010cc engine which was used in the SEAT 127 but never an option on the FIAT badged 127.

In all of these little 127s, it’s a 4 speed manual and your body shapes on these were either a 3 or 5 door hatchback or a 2 or 4 door without the hatchback.

The 4 door variant was included as per SEAT’s design policy.

It’s worth noting that the 127 was Fiat’s first super mini hatchback and was so expertly designed with 80% of it’s floor space being used for luggage and passenger space, it made perfect sense that SEAT picked this car to rebadge for the Spanish market.

It really was a car to be reckoned with.

The partnership with FIAT came to an end in 1982, so it won’t surprise you to know the car wasn’t replaced with another rebadged FIAT, but instead, the SEAT Fura, which was essentially a bit of a jazzed up 127.

On the FIAT side of things, the 127 ended production in 1983, a year later than SEAT, and was replaced with the Fiat Uno.

When production came to an end in 1982, SEAT had produced 1.2 million of the 127, which marks this out as a pretty successful, iconic car of its time.

Now before we get on with looking at the dash, let’s chat to the owner Alex.

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