SEAT was founded in 1950 by the Instituto Nacional de Industria with Fiat's assistance, but is now a subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group. Initially, SEAT manufactured re-badged Fiat models that differed very little visually from the products of the Italian parent company.

The first car under the new SEAT logo without Fiat's involvement appeared in 1982, and was called the SEAT Ronda. This was a restyled Fiat Ritmo, and sparked a lawsuit from Fiat against SEAT, as the former claimed the car was still too similar to the Ritmo. The then president of SEAT then showed a Ronda to the press with all the parts different from the Fiat Ritmo painted in bright yellow, to highlight the differences. This ended the dispute. Rumour at the time had it that Fiat was angry because the Ronda restyling was in fact too close to their own planned restyling for the Fiat Ritmo, which they had to scrap.

After the withdrawal of Fiat in 1981, the Volkswagen Group signed a co-operation agreement with SEAT, becoming the major shareholder in 1986, and owner of 100% of the company in 1990.