Specialist automotive engineer, his first position fI spent ten years in Barreiros before passing through ITT and the National Institute of Industry, INI, where he entered as head of planning. And there, she discovers the SEAT dossier- “she will not save herself”, it is the result of her analysis.
And we are in the seventies. The powers are aware that Franco is nearing his life’s end, that after his absence nothing will be the same, and many structures. like that of a national industry protected behind the wall of import tariffs, will change.
At the end of the sixties, when FIAT and Citroën were negotiating a possible alliance that later failed (several decades would still take to reach Stellantis), the possibility of manufacturing the Citroën GS at the SEAT plant was even considered…
But now the picture is different. Renault y Citroën They are already in Spain. Chrysler has taken over Barreiros and then Peugeot will come. Ford and General Motors prepare their landing. No, SEAT cannot survive alone.
And then? Antoñanzas goes to Turin without anyone knowing, to meet with Umberto Agnelli. He will return the visit at his home in Madrid. Antoñanzas is convinced that an agreement must be reached with FIAT, the natural partner for the Spanish brand. But when he informs his superiors of his conversations, they take him for crazy: no one from the government is going to allow this solution: the jewel in the crown of the Spanish automobile industry in Italian hands
On November 20, 1975, Franco died. Antoñanzas now president of the INI, recovers the dialogue with Turin and informs the government that, now, yes, it gives him the go-ahead but qualified… Nothing is easy in those times.
At the head of the INI, Antoñanzas rejects the pressures to take over troubled companies. Minister Carlos Pérez del Bricio considers the engineer an intelligent and very useful man, but he wants someone more flexible at the head of the INI. And he invites him to leave his position and preside over the company he wants. Antoñanzas does not doubt: he wants SEAT.
In 1979, an agreement was signed between the INI, SEAT and FIAT. The Agnellis’ idea is to create a group that will make it possible to manufacture two million cars a year. And Antoñanzas is convinced that the Italians, who already have 41% of SEAT’s shares, will become majority partners in a year, integrating the Spanish brand, while retaining its name, into FIAT. And the SEAT technical center where Italian models were adapted will be closed: now there will be nothing specifically Spanish. In exchange, the Turin house will take over SEAT, including the Authi factory in Landaben. Thus, a production of four hundred thousand cars per year and 32,000 jobs have been saved.
Everything seems to have gone well. The Italians arrive. Fusaro, who comes from Ferrari, is appointed CEO of SEAT (with the title of CEO) and disembarks with his entire team in Spain. Antoñanzas sees his field of action reduced to the relations of the brand with the INI and the government.
the italian fright
But Fusaro finds himself in a worse economic situation than expected: SEAT has been in deficit since 1977. And in Italy things are not going well either. Now Vittorio Ghidella, who has replaced Tufarelli in Turin, considers it illogical for FIAT to sell cars made in Spain under its own brand. Italian unions press Why keep jobs in Barcelona and Pamplona while the workers in Turin go on strike?
In the spring of 1980, Umberto Agnelli and Ghidella visit Carlos Bustelo, Minister of Industry: they want to review the contract or…
The arrival of the Panda seemed to be the beginning of a SEAT integrated into FIAT, but it became the beginning of the divorce
On the same day, SEAT presents its dealers, the new Panda. In the presentation, a person in charge of the brand proclaims that “with FIAT we are going to conquer the world”. Suddenly, at the back of the room, a representative of a dealer who has arrived late, raises his voice waving a newspaper: “FIAT is leaving Spain.”
On June 28, FIAT is expected to take control of SEAT. But in May, a private plane lands in Barajas. Giovanni and Umberto Agnelli, Cesare Romiti and Ghidella go down the ladder. In Madrid’s Plaza del Marqués de Salamanca, headquarters of the INI, the president of this organization, José Miguel de la Rica, Antoñanzas and Luis Villar, who is FIAT commercial director for Spain, awaits them. Next to De la Rica’s office, a room has been prepared for a lunch for eight people. Before, Giovanni and Umberto Agnelli meet with José Miguel de la Rica in his office. They leave a few minutes later, and with Ghidella and Romiti, they leave for the airport without waiting for food. FIAT is gone.
De la Rica and Bustelo are enraged: They want to sue the Italians. But Antoñanzas is more intelligent: you have to maintain the relationship, the ties that you can and while you can. Indeed, at SEAT the Panda, 127, 124, Ritmo and 131 are manufactured. They are FIAT models and 30% of their components come from Italy: a lawsuit, a violent break with the Italians would cause irreparable damage and the end of the Spanish brand.
Fusaro and his team return to Turin. The INI remains for a symbolic amount with the shares of FIAT.
Diplomacy, agreements
Antoñanzas is once again at the helm of SEAT with his team. Now you have to try maintaining exports through FIAT, keep the Spanish brand alive until a solution is found. You have to fight, times of blood, sweat and tears are expected as Churchill promised the English.
The president of the Spanish firm reaches an agreement with the Italians: in the second half of 1980, FIAT is going to export fifty thousand cars manufactured in Spain under its brand. In exchange, SEAT will not export with its brand during the same period.
The Italians do not give data on the evolution of their models. A new problem. But there are many people from the Antoñanzas team with good personal relations with their Italian colleagues. Small collaboration steps are taken, new exports of cars manufactured in Spain that are sold in Europe as FIATs are agreed.
In 1981 an agreement was reached to be able to export SEAT, as long as they were sufficiently modified, to Europe, interior modifications and some exterior aspects.
SEAT’s economic crisis is brutal, but Antoñanzas is a born negotiator, with very clear ideas. Reach agreements with new unions of Spanish democracy to whom he explains the situation. You have to endure, survive until you can integrate SEAT into a large multinational. Time is gained.
FIAT’s technological base is used, obviously, but solutions are sought for the future, to renew models that are aging at a devilish pace. Giugiario, Fisore, Porsche…
The 127 becomes Fura; Ritmo becomes Ronda, surpassing even Fiat’s complaint; with a trunk it is Málaga, El Panda becomes Marbella and the platform of Ronda is the starting point of Ibiza….
Antoñanzas and Carl Hahn will sign the agreement that will lead SEAT to integrate into the VW Group
Antoñanzas and his team. Men like Juan José Diaz Ruiz fight hard to save the brand. In 1982 he signs with Carl Hahn the first agreement with Volkswagen.
It is not the end, not even the beginning of the end, but at least the end of the beginning. The Toledo, we are in 1991, it is the first car in the history of SEAT made one hundred percent, from the origin and approach, within the structure of the VW Group. Antoñanzas left SEAT in 1984, but it is indisputable that the new model would never have existed without him, nor possibly SEAT. Juan Miguel Antoñanzas: blood, sweat, tears and intelligence…