Start with what the SEAT Ritmo is: a 5-door hatchback with gasoline engine, built from 1979 to 1982, as the oil crises and the first emissions rules rewired the industry. What it meant takes a little longer. The shape is credited to Pierangelo Andreani (1971) and Sergio Sartorelli at Centro Stile Fiat.
The background
The SEAT Ritmo is a small family car produced by the Spanish automaker SEAT from 1979 to 1982. In 1980, the SEAT Ritmo was named Car of the Year in Spain. The model was also the first to use a non-numerical name, unlike its predecessors. In 1982, with the end of the partnership between SEAT and Fiat, the Ritmo was heavy restyled into the SEAT Ronda. The Ritmo also provided the underpinnings for both first generation Ibiza and Málaga. 118,450 Ritmos were built in total.
The engineering
The engine is gasoline engine. On the scales it comes to 850 –. The wheelbase is 2448 mm. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Where it sits
In the SEAT line-up the SEAT Ritmo has a clear place: it replaced the SEAT 124 / SEAT 128; it handed the line to the SEAT Ronda; the factory was Barcelona (Zona Franca), Spain. The cars a buyer would have weighed it against include the Lancia Delta, the Mercedes-Benz G-Class, the GM (General Motors) Saab 900. Its SEAT stablemates include the SEAT 124 and the SEAT 133.
Owning one today
There is no federal ownership record for the SEAT Ritmo — it predates the complaint database or was never sold in the United States — so MotorJury publishes no running-cost figure for it. For a car of this age the price is set by the collector market and the condition of the individual example, not by a formula.