Spanish variant

By Alastair Sloane

THE Spanish-built Seat Cordoba, a four-door car with a big boot and a big reputation in the second tier of the international rally world, is expected to go on sale in New Zealand early next year. Seat (Say-at) is owned by the Volkswagen Group and builds about 500,000 cars a year.

Two Cordoba models, built on the same platform as the booted variant of the Polo, are undergoing evaluation in Auckland now. Both are well-equipped, powered by either 1.6 or 1.8-litre, four-cylinder engines and will be aimed at the popular $20,000 to $27,000 market, dominated by Japanese and Korean carmakers.

About eight Cordobas have been under lock and key in suburban Mt Wellington at the headquarters of Volkswagen importers European Motor Distributors.

Also tucked away in the carmaker's compound is the VW Lupo, the thrifty small car, and the Bora, a sedan slightly bigger than the Golf. Both VWs are being considered for the New Zealand market. The likely appearance of the Seat Cordoba shows just how seriously VW is taking its expansion plans here.

The Cordoba, built at a factory near Barcelona, will for the first time give VW a four-door at a popular price.

"We are looking at Seat because it is a Volkswagen brand and just to see if it fits into the New Zealand market," said Dean Sheed, VW's sales manager. "One of the first Seats to look at is the Cordoba, to assess price and to see how competitive it is against the competition.

"The key thing with the Cordoba is the value-for-money position and all the good European things, the VW and Audi features such as anti-submarine seats,
immobilisers and airbags, are in the vehicle. But if we were looking at the 1.6-litre somewhere in the early $20,000 mark and the 1.8-litre automatic above the mid-20s, we could look at the Cordoba as a sub-Volkswagen strategy vehicle."

The only car VW has below $30,000 is the hatchback Polo. The Cordoba opens up two markets - private and fleet. And the fleet market is a whole new area for VW.
Dean Sheed, VW's sales manager, said Seat aims to expand worldwide under the VW umbrella.

"Seat is making vehicles from 1.2-litre diesels through to the 2.3-litre Toledo, which uses the VR5 engine from the Golf and Passat, and on to people-movers," he said.

"The Seat range is essentially Volkswagen quality with Mediterranean flair. It has a sporty positioning and its strategic competitor is Alfa Romeo."

Seat first turned up in New Zealand in the late 1980s with a hatchback called the Ibiza, which had VW underpinnings. VW only had an interest in Seat then and Auckland's Moller Group, which represented a handful of European franchises, arranged the Ibiza's arrival.

But now that VW owns the carmaker it has moved quickly to give it a profile in Australia and New Zealand. More Seat models will follow. Seat launched a number of variants at the Frankfurt Motor Show. One, called the Leon, will be a VW Golf-like vehicle in terms of volume.

Earlier it whipped the covers off a futuristic concept roadster with which it will use to challenge Alfa Romeo and change its image as a middle-of-the-road carmaker.

"If you look at how Seat is positioned worldwide, at price versus luxury, Seat would be underneath Volkswagen," said Sheed. "But where Volkswagen is all about luxury and quality at a value-for-money price, Seat is all about sport and lifestyle, perhaps a cross in New Zealand between Subaru and Alfa Romeo.

"Seat does have some four-wheel-drive models and with them has won the Formula 2 worldwide rally championship for the past three years. So Seat has a very strong rally and race heritage in Europe which we haven't even tapped into yet."