SEAT

EXEO: A SEDAN WITH SPANISH BODY AND GERMAN SOUL

When a small brand belongs to an automobile group, it is fortunate to be able to borrow certain components from other larger brands for its vehicles. Something like this has happened to SEAT since it joined the Volkswagen Group. The Spanish brand focused on selling cars aimed more at a young audience with a desire for sports cars and with a good relationship between equipment and price.
While Volkswagen focused on staying as a brand more attached to refinement and good level of equipment, at least in its global products, since those that were designed for emerging markets are another story. From this association, there was a time that SEAT had a medium sedan that sought to compete with proposals such as Honda Accord, Mazda 6 and Toyota Camry, among others, it was the seat Exeo.
The seat Exeo was an average sedan of 4.6 meters in length that sought to be the reference in the line of the SEAT, the most equipped, expensive and wide model. It was first presented to the public in 2008, however, it took almost a year for it to reach the brand's dealers in Europe and other markets beyond the Old Continent.

It was available with Sedan and ST - perua bodywork. Although outwardly its design carried the image of SEAT, in fact the seat Exeo was an Audi A4 B7, a generation that was available between 2005 and 2008, but that lived a second air through the Spanish brand in several parts of the world.

That's right, the Audi A4 B7 retired in 2008, but lived its second ar between 2009 and 2014 with the seat emblem. For many this could be something unacceptable, but it is a successful ruse that almost all brands have already applied at some point. For example, the second generation of the Jetta remained active for more than 25 years in China, just as in Mexico the Nissan Tsuru remained on the market for more than 15 years, although its new generations were sold at the same time, but under another name.
During its existence the seat Exeo only had one generation and a facelift of Half Life Cycle, which gave it a fresher look, however, despite starting well its sales, after 2010 struggled to reach customers.
There are those who attribute this exit from the rails to the arrival and the beginning of the SUVs fever, but also to the economic problems and widespread price increase that many economies of the world suffered after the crisis that broke out in the United States between 2007 and 2008, affecting many countries in a collateral way.
Although the Audi A4 is a Premium car, when it turned into the SEAT Exeo, it did not intend to compete with models of the same Premium segment, but with medium sedans, but of generalist brands, because the advances applied to the next generation of the A4 could not be adopted so easily by an older model.

Under the hood he had many engines at his disposal, from an aspirated of only 100 hp to another with 200 hp, with some in the middle that ranged between 150 and 180 hp. For Europe mainly some diesel engines were offered. The transmission could be manual six-speed or automatic also six-speed.

The advantage over rivals in its segment was in the turbo engines, which offered a good acceleration and if it was driven without stepping deep on the accelerator, a good fuel economy could be obtained.
After losing sales little by little, and still needing an image change to stay up to date, SEAT chose to sacrifice Exeo entirely. Shortly before eliminating him from the line, SEAT was already with its sights set on what would be its future priority. 



In addition to successful models such as Ibiza and León, since then they were already working on Ateca, which emerged in 2016, a strategy that worked well and that currently follows very strong, since it was supplemented with the arrival of Arona and Tarraco.

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