Production 1997–2004 | Class City car (A) | |
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The SEAT Arosa (Typ 6H) was a city car from the Spanish automaker SEAT, from 1997 to 2004. The model débuted in March 1998, at the Geneva Motor Show, while its facelifted version was presented in October 2000, at the Paris Motor Show. It shared the same platform with the Volkswagen Lupo.
Contents
- Pre facelift 19972000
- Facelift 20002004
- Engines
- Concept models
- Sales and production figures
- Awards
- References
The successor, SEAT Mii, was launched in October 21 2011, and has been on sale since January 15, 2012.
Pre-facelift (1997–2000)
Named after Vilagarcía de Arousa, a municipality in the province of Pontevedra, Spain, it was only available as a three-door, four-seater hatchback. The Arosa, launched in 1998, was to a large extent identical to Volkswagen's own city car which was introduced later in 1998, Volkswagen Lupo, and both cars were based on the Volkswagen Group A00 platform, a shortened version of the A03 platform used by the larger Volkswagen Polo and SEAT Ibiza.
The Arosa was initially manufactured at a Volkswagen plant in Wolfsburg, Germany, and only in May 1998, was the production moved to SEAT facilities in Martorell in Spain.
The Arosa was designed by the same man who designed the Bugatti Veyron 16.4, Jozef Kabaň.
Facelift (2000–2004)
The model later received a facelift in October 2000. The Arosa replaced the SEAT Marbella in the Spanish brand's lineup, but itself was not replaced by any SEAT, when production ceased in June 2005. A successor eventually arrived in 2012 with the Mii.
Apart from its exterior restyling, the facelift model featured a restyled interior, with a new dashboard.
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Engines
The Arosa was available with the following units:
Petrol engines
Diesel engines
All engines came with a five-speed manual transmission, with a four-speed automatic optional on the 1.4 (44 kW).
Concept models
At the Frankfurt Motor Show in September 2001, SEAT presented two SEAT Arosa-based concept cars:
Sales and production figures
Since its launch in 1997 up to 2005, more than 175,000 SEAT Arosa cars have been sold and produced.
The total production per year of SEAT Arosa cars, manufactured in SEAT and other Volkswagen group plants, is shown in the following table :