• The residents of Ateca, Arona and Tarragona have a special connection with the SEAT models named after them
• In the first five days alone, the dealership in Tarragona sold seven SEAT Tarraco units
• Four out of every ten models sold by SEAT in Tenerife are Aronas

Martorell, 16/01/2019. Taking your home town or the town where you live everywhere you go, and not just on your ID card, is a privilege that many of the inhabitants of Tarragona, Ateca and Arona do not want to give up. The three SEAT SUVs act as ambassadors for the municipalities they are named after, as they make them famous all over the world, but there’s nothing quite like playing on your home turf. This is where they have had and continue to have the greatest acceptance, and that shows in sales.

Three Tarracos, a formula for success according to Jesús: He lives in Tarragona, manages the Tarraco Arena and drives a SEAT Tarraco company car. Jesús Féliz proudly says that “Things like this don’t happen every day, that a car is named after your city and the company you work for and you get to enjoy driving it.” But that didn’t happen by chance. When SEAT launched its campaign so the brand followers could decide on the name for its new SUV, it was clear to Jesús that “Tarragona, Tarraco, Tarraco Arena was the perfect equation.” So he rallied other residents, businesses and institutions and got the result he wanted. “The city of Tarragona has 140,000 inhabitants, so imagine what nearly 52,000 meant to us!” he explained.

The SEAT Tarraco was presented worldwide in the Tarraco Arena and in the first five days the dealer in the area sold seven units of the largest of the SUVs. “The name says a lot, because we are proud of where we live, but it is also a great car in every way”, says Jesús. For him, this win-win-win is so special that he even immortalised it in several paintings by an artist, who of course, also comes from Tarragona.

From neighbours to owners and vice versa: The news that Ateca would lend its name to a SEAT model ran like wildfire through this Zaragoza municipality. “It was a boom, in less than five minutes the whole town knew about it,” says Ramón Cristóbal, the mayor of Ateca. There were people from Ateca who bought the mid-size SUV because of that.  But more SEAT Ateca owners from other places did the opposite and became residents of the town, at least for a few days. Every year dozens of fans of this SUV, about 60, visit Ateca. “They come to drive around the village and the surrounding area and enjoy our our company,” explains the mayor.

The first of the first: Iranzu Pradas was the first in all of Tenerife to buy a SEAT Arona. She lives just 20 kilometres from this Canary Island city. “I went to test it right away, I loved the car and I was very excited about driving around with the name of a Canary Island town, where I have friends and family, so I bought the showroom model. I couldn’t wait”, explains this Tenerife native. Iranzu was the first of a long list of buyers. The manager of Rahn Auto Universal dealers, Luis Enrique Linares, knows it well: “40% of the cars we sell in Tenerife are Aronas.  When it arrived, all of us from the dealership went to receive it to admire its workmanship and see what kind of letters Arona was written with. We all felt represented. It’s an honour to drive the name Arona all over the place and the car is also a perfect match for the island, because it’s urban, great for going to the beach or climbing the 2,000 meters of the Teide.” 

The rationale for the names

The legendary SEAT 600 owes its name to a series of numerical coincidences. Its big brother was the Fiat 600, the car’s engine displacement was 600 cubic centimetres, and it weighed 600 kilos.

SEAT went through several phases when choosing the names of its models. The 800 and 1,500 were named after the engine capacity. The 124 and 127 were the project number. After that, proper names were used, such as Ritmo or Fura, although this trend was short-lived. 

Since the 1982 launch of the SEAT Ronda, it has been a tradition, with few exceptions, to name the models after Spanish cities or towns. The latest model, the SEAT Tarraco, is the fifteenth.

When trying to come up with the name for a car, we look for one that reflects the brand’s DNA, is short, easy to remember and sounds good in every language.  Furthermore, in this case, the shortlisted names were discussed by opinion groups in different countries, attended by people with a buyer profile. After that, the popular vote was decisive.