The Great European Car Extinction
SEAT, Jaguar, Lancia, Maserati, Saab, Rover — and the brutal economics deciding which historic car brands deserve to survive
A century of automotive heritage is colliding with Chinese industrial speed, electrification, tariffs, software, overcapacity and economics that no longer care about nostalgia. The question is no longer which European car brand has the greatest history. It is which one can still justify its existence.
There is something almost sacrilegious about imagining Europe without some of its great automotive names.
Saab disappeared.
Rover collapsed.
Lancia became a shadow of the company that produced the Stratos, Delta, Fulvia and Thema.
Maserati, one of the most evocative names ever placed on the bonnet of a car, is fighting for relevance.
Jaguar has undertaken one of the most radical — and controversial — reinventions in modern automotive history.
And now SEAT, founded in 1950 and intimately connected with Spain’s industrialisation and mass motorisation, faces an existential question of its own.
Reports this week suggested Volkswagen could phase out the SEAT brand around the end of the decade. Volkswagen’s subsequent official statement was more nuanced: no final decision has been made.
But the important part was what came next.
SEAT S.A. itself acknowledged that increasingly demanding regulation, the economics of electrification and the investment required for another generation of vehicles make the business case for further investment in the SEAT brand increasingly difficult.
A gradual phase-out after 2030 is explicitly one of the possibilities under consideration. (SEAT Cupra Media Center)
That is far more significant than a rumour.
It is an admission of economic reality.
And it illustrates something much larger than SEAT.
Car brands do not die of old age. They die when nostalgia stops producing margins.