The SEAT 132 is a four-door rear-wheel drive notchback

Notchback

Notchback is a styling term describing a car body style, a variation of three-box styling where the third distinct volume or "box" is less pronounced — especially where the rear deck is short or where the rear window is upright...

 saloon presented for the first time at the Barcelona Motor Show, assembled in Barcelona's

Barcelona

Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...

 Zona Franca, (Catalonia

Catalonia

Catalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...

, Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

) and sold by SEAT

SEAT

SEAT, S.A. is a Spanish automobile manufacturer founded on May 9, 1950 by the Instituto Nacional de Industria , a state-owned industrial holding company....

 between 1973 and 1982.

For the important taxi market, the 132 filled the niche vacated with the withdrawal in 1970 of the diesel-engined SEAT 1500

SEAT 1500

The SEAT 1500 was a Spanish-built 6-seater model of saloon and estate cars, based on the Italian Fiat 1800. The 1500 was the successor to the SEAT 1400 C: it was manufactured between 1963 and 1972, with the five door estate version arriving in 1965...

, the 132 being usefully larger than the SEAT 124

SEAT 124

The SEAT 124 is a mid-sized family car produced by the Spanish manufacturer SEAT in its Barcelona Zona Franca and Landaben Pamplona plants between 1968 and 1980...

 which was SEAT's largest model during the early 1970s.

SEAT's new car shared its body with the Fiat 132, but when launched in May 1973 it featured its own engine options:

• The SEAT 132 1600 had a four-cylinder 1592 cc engine of 98 bhp .

• The SEAT 132 1800 had a four-cylinder 1756 cc engine of 107 bhp .

• The SEAT 132 Diesel featured a two-litre 55 bhp Mercedes Benz engine, corresponding to that offered in the Mercedes Benz 200D
  Mercedes-Benz W123
  W123 is the internal chassis-designation Mercedes-Benz used for their executive line of cars, manufactured between 1976 and 1985.The W123 models surpassed their predecessor, the W114 and W115 models, as the most successful Mercedes, selling 2.7 million cars before replacement by the W124 after 1985...
  
  . This followed the pattern established with the SEAT 1500
  SEAT 1500
  The SEAT 1500 was a Spanish-built 6-seater model of saloon and estate cars, based on the Italian Fiat 1800. The 1500 was the successor to the SEAT 1400 C: it was manufactured between 1963 and 1972, with the five door estate version arriving in 1965...
  
   which had also been available with a Mercedes Benz diesel engine.

In 1976 an automatic transmission option was offered, which may have been a response to the success in Spain of the locally assembled and similarly enhanced Chrysler 2-litre

Chrysler 180

The Chrysler 180 was the base name for a series of large saloon cars produced by Chrysler Europe. Resulting from joining development efforts of Rootes Group and Simca, the car was produced from 1970 to 1975 in Poissy, France, and later in Chrysler's subsidiary Barreiros' factory in Spain...

.

From 1979 a SEAT 132 2000 became available, with a four-cylinder 1920 cc engine of 109 bhp : in due course a larger 2.2-litre four-cylinder Mercedes diesel version was also offered.

In the early 1980s extensive discussions concerning funding and control took place between the major share holder, the Spanish government, and Fiat: SEAT needed major capital investment which Fiat was not prepared to inject. The outcome, by 1982, was an end after nearly 30 years, to the relationship with Fiat. Already in 1981, Fiat having by now switched to their new Argenta model, production of the SEAT 132 ceased, after approximately 100 000 examples had been produced. No direct replacement in this class was, till recently, offered by the company

SEAT

SEAT, S.A. is a Spanish automobile manufacturer founded on May 9, 1950 by the Instituto Nacional de Industria , a state-owned industrial holding company....

. The SEAT Exeo

SEAT Exeo

The SEAT Exeo is a five-seat large family car, and flagship model, built by the Spanish car manufacturer, and Volkswagen Group subsidiary SEAT, S.A., with factory production commencing in December 2008....

can be seen as a belated replacement, however.