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

It is currently a wholly owned subsidiary of the German Volkswagen Group, as a member of the now-defunct Audi Brand Group, together with Audi and Lamborghini, and marketed as a car maker with a youthful sporty profile. Within the Volkswagen Group and under the Audi Brand Group, the SEAT brand itself has been developed as a group with subsidiary companies (SEAT Group) and 'SEAT, S.A.' as the parent company.

The headquarters of SEAT, S.A. are located at SEAT's industrial complex in Martorell near Barcelona, Spain. By 2000 annual production peaked at over 500,000 units; in total up to 2006, over 16 million cars have been produced including more than 6 million from the Martorell plant, with three-quarters of the annual production being exported to over seventy countries worldwide.

The name SEAT, previously standing for the acronym Sociedad Española de Automóviles de Turismo (Spanish Touring Car Company, in English), in 1990 was changed to SEAT, S.A.

SEAT today is the only major Spanish car manufacturer with the ability and the infrastructure to develop its own cars in-house.

SEAT's involvement in motorsport begins back in the 1960s with the brand's contribution to the national formula races in Spain and by the end of the same decade the start of its implication to rallies. In 1971, the 'Special Vehicles department' was formed with the mission to enforce the brand's participation in rally championships, followed by 11 titles between 1979 and 1983. The year 1985 was the moment when SEAT Sport was founded as a separate motorsport division and especially since the Volkswagen Group takeover in 1986, SEAT has been increasing even more its presence in the motorsport world, mainly down to VW's plan on focusing the SEAT brand as 'sporty' in order to appeal particularly to the younger generation of drivers. The result of this effort has been rewarded through SEAT's most prestigious titles in FIA championships, three conquests with the SEAT Ibiza Kit-Car in the FIA 2L World Rally Championship (WRC) (1996, 1997, 1998) and two times with the SEAT León in the FIA World Touring Car Championship (WTCC) (2008, 2009).

In 2003 the SEAT Sport division presented at the Barcelona Motor Show first as a concept car and later the final version of the SEAT Cupra GT race car, which was produced in limited series on customer demand addressed to expertised individuals and racing teams willing to take part in race events.
The Cupra GT was chosen as a GT race car from racing teams, like the Sunred Engineering (SunRED) team, making its debut in 2004 in the Spanish GT Championship, and took part in several Grand tourer circuits not only in Spain but also run in tracks abroad like those of Monza and Magny-Cours.

In 1970 SEAT set up the 'Fórmula Nacional' series in Spain, a year later to be known as 'Fórmula 1430'. The single seater formula cars, which took part driven by young Spanish drivers, were equipped under support from SEAT with engines of the 1430 model and 6700 gearboxes. The first race of the 'Fórmula Nacional' series took place at the Jarama circuit in Madrid.

Almost every model in SEAT's range has an 'Ecomotive' derivative version, which in comparison to the standard version has a more eco-friendly tuning. Reduction of weight, low-resistance tyres, new aerodynamics, tweaks in the suspension, as well as changes made to the engine's electronic management software with an additional implementation of a maintenance-free Diesel Particle Filter (DPF) for the diesel engines, also updates in the gearbox and the gear ratios with a gearshift indicator in the dash panel reminding when it is the proper time to change gears, combined with an engine 'Start/Stop system' and an 'Energy Recuperation system' are some of the modifications adopted in the Ecomotive range in order to cut down both fuel consumption and emissions. The result is a range with some of the cleanest models featuring an improvement not only in gas and particles emissions but also in fuel economy, without big compromise in the vehicle's dynamic performance or practicality; for example the SEAT Ibiza Ecomotive 1.4 TDI has CO2 emissions coming up at 98 g/km and still it comes even faster from 0 to 100 km/h than the standard version featuring a 5-door body and air-conditioning, while the SEAT León Ecomotive's CO2 emissions are among the lowest in its segment too and raise up to 99 g/km. Up to the present, the Ecomotive range has been renowned in many occasions. In 2008, the Ibiza Ecomotive has been declared on top of the Verkehrs-Club Deutschland’s 2008/2009 list in the “environmentally beneficial vehicle” category and in the 10th Eco Tour not only it has won in the small diesel class but also proved to be the overall winner of all categories. In that specific year the SEAT Ibiza Ecomotive was also awarded with the 'Ecobest 2008' award by the Autobest organisation and the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag named it the 'most economic car of its class in the world'. The year 2009 has been the one when once more the Ibiza Ecomotive was nominated for the 'Green Steering wheel' award in Switzerland, and has set two consecutive times a new world record on fuel saving with a single tank, certified by the IPMC (International Police Motor Corporation) : the first when the Austrian Gerhard Plattner drove from Martorell (Spain) to Göttingen (Germany) with an average fuel consumption of 2.9 l/100 km and the second time in his route from Cieszyn (Poland) to Frankfurt (Germany) having achieved the world record in fuel consumption of 2,34 /100 km (or 100 mpg U.S.) covering a distance of 1,910 km on a single tank.