Saturday 4th May 1991

SEAT Toledo made its debut at the Barcelona Motor Show. The initial version of the SEAT Toledo (Typ 1L) was launched as a five-door liftback sedan, and its sales career lasted from 1991 to 1999. This generation of the Toledo was the first SEAT automobile developed entirely under Volkswagen Group ownership, and it was built on the Golf Mk2 Volkswagen Group A2 platform with a 550 litre boot expandable to 1360 litres when folding rear seats, larger in shape and size than the Volkswagen Jetta/Vento’s combined with the advantage of a tailgate.As saloon versions of small family cars were rare in Europe, it was sometimes considered a large family car due to its overall length and boot size, despite having comparably less rear leg room, and pricing closer to small family cars. It went on sale in most of Europe in May 1991, though it did not arrive on the British market until October 1991.The Toledo initially featured underpowered engines compared to the Ibiza and Málaga’s ‘System Porsche’ units, such as a base 1.6 L 75 PS (55 kW; 74 bhp) petrol engine, and a GT version using the 2.0 L 115 PS (85 kW; 113 bhp) engine. Later, the Toledo would see the addition of more powerful versions, including a 150 PS (110 kW; 148 bhp) 2.0 GTI 16v, and 110 PS (81 kW; 108 bhp) 1.9 TDI which, like many diesel engines built since 1996 by the Volkswagen Group, is advertised as capable of running on either mineral diesel or biodiesel.This model later received a mild facelift in 1996. Sales were not strong however, as has been the case for all the generations of the Toledo.