At a Silverstone meeting in the 1950s one of the Aldington brothers who ran Frazer Nash, and was trying to interest Austin boss Leonard Lord in a joint-venture sports car project, pointed out to him how many Frazer Nashes were competing on the circuit. Lord said he was far more interested in how many Austins were in the car park.
Manufacturers go racing and rallying to improve their image, but first and foremost to sell more cars. The fact that there are more Seats about, many of them with younger drivers than you used to see, is not unconnected with the fact that the Barcelona company figures very strongly in the F2 category of the World Rally Championship, and in the British championship too.
The F2 machines are the 280bhp two-litre non-turbo jobs, often seen as being at least vaguely closer to everyday road cars than the rip-snorting turbo types. Seat has won the F2 manufacturers' title for the last two seasons, and most followers of the sport know that.
Here in the UK, the Mobil 1 championship is approaching its climax on the Manx Rally with the Seat team leading everything in sight: Gwyndaf Evans the drivers' points table, Barbara Armstrong from Castle Douglas the Ladies Cup, and Seat as a marque the manufacturers' section.
Another Scot, Robbie Head, has been drafted in to keep up the pressure on the other works teams.
Seat comes up with some incandescent colour schemes. It likes to plug the idea of whatever is the Catalan for joie-de-vivre. But people acknowledge that its cars are developing a strong sporting image. They can be in the thick of competition, and in the car parks too.
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