The SEAT Fórmula is a rear-wheel drive mid-engined roadster concept car

Concept car

A concept vehicle or show vehicle is a car made to showcase new styling and or new technology. They are often shown at motor shows to gauge customer reaction to new and radical designs which may or may not have a chance of being produced....

 developed by the Spanish

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...

 carmaker 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....

 initially aimed at limited car production. Designed at the Volkswagen Group's Design Center Europe at Sitges

Sitges

*Church of Sant Bartolomeu i Santa Tecla . It houses two Gothic sepulchres , belonging to the an older church located on the same site...

 near Barcelona

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...

 a facility jointly owned by Volkswagen

Volkswagen

Volkswagen is a German automobile manufacturer and is the original and biggest-selling marque of the Volkswagen Group, which now also owns the Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, SEAT, and Škoda marques and the truck manufacturer Scania.Volkswagen means "people's car" in German, where it is...

, Audi

Audi

Audi AG is a German automobile manufacturer, from supermini to crossover SUVs in various body styles and price ranges that are marketed under the Audi brand , positioned as the premium brand within the Volkswagen Group....

 and SEAT, it was penned by a team directed by Erwin Leo Himmel

Erwin Leo Himmel

Erwin Leo Himmel is a renowned automobile designer. He was one of the first designers who recognized the future importance of a consistent brand design in the automotive industry.-Background:...

 into which participated the Lotus Elise

Lotus Elise

The 1996 Lotus Elise weighed . Because of its relatively low weight, it was able to accelerate 0- in 5.8 seconds despite its relatively low power output of...

 designer Julian Thomson exposing the design language of the future models of the brand.

The name Fórmula itself derives from the brand's heritage from the past, as a reminding of the creation of the Spanish Fórmula Nacional race tracks back in the 1960s, when SEAT started its implication in motorsport activities .

The first concept for the car built by the Turinese company Stola was shown at the 1999 Geneva Salon international de l' auto, featuring a water-cooled 2-litre 20-valve turbo four-cylinder 240 hp engine which was riding onto an aluminium chassis weighing almost 900 kg. Its 20-inch light alloy wheels (7.5 J x 20" front and 9 J x 20" rear) were fitted on 205/45 R20 front and 255/35 R20 rear tires and mounted onto an independent suspension system consisting of Formula One-style wishbones in front and horizontally mounted dampers rear system. The combination of the very light chassis with the powerful engine (performing a maximum output of 240 bhp peaking at 5800 rpm and a maximum torque of 295 Nm between 2100 and 4800 rpm) and the six-speed sequential Sportronic electro-hydraulic semi-automatic gearbox, both deriving from SEAT's rally cars, gave the SEAT Fórmula the ability to reach 0-100 km/h in 4.8 seconds with a top speed of 235 km/h . As for the brakes, all front and rear wheels disposed ventilated disc brakes.

A 100 litre volume luggage compartment was also available.