Car Of The Day: August 16, 2011

Today's car of the day is Guisval's 1985 SEAT Málaga.

The SEAT Málaga (codenamed 023A) is a four-door saloon produced by the Spanish automaker SEAT from 1985 to 1992, named after the city of Málaga in Andalucía, southern Spain.
It can be considered a saloon variant of the SEAT Ronda hatchback,[dubious – discuss] which had been launched three years earlier before the Málaga. The underpinnings of the Málaga were indeed based upon those of the SEAT Ronda, a restyled version of the SEAT Ritmo which in its turn was a rebadged version of the Fiat Ritmo. In this sense the Málaga most closely resembled the Fiat Regata, Fiat's own saloon version of the Fiat Ritmo hatchback. However the development of the SEAT Málaga and the Fiat Regata saloon cars from SEAT and Fiat respectively had been separate, as the two manufacturers had already ended their partnership by the time of the launch of their two saloon models.

For more information and pictures of the real car please visit: SEAT Málaga

You never know what's going to pop out of my collection next.  Guisval, Mira, and Gisima managed to cover a lot of Spanish automobiles of the '70s & '80s, many of which were run of the mill sedans and hatchbacks like this one.  All three manufacturers resorted to dressing up these plain Jane family cars with rally graphics and stickers...

The SEAT Málaga production ended in 1992 well after the Volkswagen Group took over SEAT, to be replaced from its successor, the SEAT Córdoba, which was launched at the end of 1993. The Málaga sold relatively well in Spain, but did poorly in export markets, despite sharing the same System Porsche powertrain with the SEAT Ibiza.

In the UK, Daily Telegraph journalist Neil Lyndon ran a Málaga as a long term test car for 12 months. He praised its versatility and actually drove it to Málaga and back, dubbing it the "spiritual successor to the SEAT Ritmo".

The Málaga was marketed in Greece as the SEAT Gredos, after the Spanish mountain range Sierra de Gredos, because the word Málaga was considered very similar to a ubiquitous Greek swear word.