The Seat 850 was eventually replaced in 1974 by the Seat 133, a rebooted 850 sold in overseas markets as a Fiat. Seat’s first true home-grown model was the stylish Fiat 127-based 12/00/1430 Sport, an appealing coupe that was originally designed as a rear-engined, NSU badged successor for the popular NSU Prinz models. VW’s acquisition of NSU and its merger with Audi in 1969 killed this attractive coupe off. VW elected instead to replace the Prinz with an Audi badged 50 hatchback; the model that originally spawned the VW Polo in 1975.
By the early 1980s Seat’s domestic sales and Spanish market dominance were under increasing threat from ‘foreign’ manufactures that chose to build their own cars in Spain, a list that included the Ford Fiesta and GM’s new Opel Corsa/Vauxhall Nova. With falling sales and dwindling profitability, Fiat grew tired of its needy Spanish off-shoot, and declared that the business was up for grabs. The Volkswagen Group showed an interest, initially to get a useful foothold in the expanding post-Franco Spanish market through Seat’s extensive dealer network to sell its VW and Audi products. In 1983, VW dangled a tempting carrot for Seat to locally produce its Passat and Polo models, this deal making up for the local manufacturing loss of previous Fiat models, such as the 131 and 132. Using some of VW’s welcome funding, Seat updated some of the previous Fiat-derived models, such as the Panda (to create the Seat Marbella), 127 (to create the Fura) and Ritmo/Strada (renamed the Ronda and Malaga), ahead of launching its own first truly none-Fiat based Seat model, the Ibiza, in 1986 (although entry models retained Fiat’s tried and trusted 903cc engine).