SANTANA MOTORS

The company was founded as "Metallurgic de Santana, SA" and originally manufactured
agricultural equipments. The company was set up with a start up of just 3 million pesetas or
ESP(monetary unit of Spain). The company decided to expand beyond its agricultural line and
entered with the Rover car company in 1956. An agreement was reached in 1956 and production
began in 1958, licensed to build Land Rover models. The Santana Motor Company built Series
Land Rovers under license in CKD form i.e. (Complete Knocked Down kits); essential parts
were shipped from the Land Rover factory in Solihull and the Rovers were built up from this 'kit'
at the Santana factory in Spain. From 1968 it began to develop its own versions of the Land
Rover Series Models, developing new engines and new models and this led to the company to
change its name from "Metallurgic de Santana, SA" to "Land Rover Santana, SA"
Suzuki Years
The Santana Motor Company ended its agreement with Land Rover in 1983 but it continued to
develop its own range of vehicles which remained quite similar to Land Rover's Series. In 1980
Suzuki bought a 20% stake in the company and from 1986 Santana started producing licensed
versions of Suzuki models such as the Suzuki Jimmy and Vitara. The company moved even
closer to Suzuki in 1991 when Suzuki gained 49% stake in the company, becoming the
controlling shareholder, name change followed to Santana Motor, SA in the same year. By the
mid-1990s Santana's relationship with Land Rover seemed to have completely ceased as it was
now only producing licensed Suzuki models and production of the Santana Series
VitaraVI/2500;the end of production of the Series Vitara VI/2500 was forced by the new owners
Suzuki who restructured the company and the production machinery and tooling for the Series
VI/2500 was sold to Morattab an Iranian motor company. In March 1995, Suzuki decided to
disinvest from Santana. Suzuki kept the distribution network under the exclusive name of Suzuki
and sold the car factory to the Government of the Region of Andalusia for one peseta
(ESP).Nevertheless the Santana company continued to manufacture new models of cars for
Suzuki and it signed a new license contract with an agreement to produce new diesel engine of
Suzuki off roaders, this contract was extended in 1997 to 2006.
Fall Down or Doom
With the change of industrial partner from Suzuki to Fiat-Iveco, Santana broke its relations
with Suzuki in 2009 and since then it no longer made any Suzuki car under license. After the
breaking of partnership with Santana, Suzuki no longer supported the cars that were made by
Santana under the Suzuki license and brand, and addressed the owners to Santana because it
considered them as Santana's cars. This represents a serious problem for many Suzuki versions
that were exclusively made by Santana, from which it is difficult to find new parts. When
Santana broke with Suzuki, Suzuki kept the distribution network that had been owned by
Santana for decades before. Since then, Santana was not able to sell the cars. However, in 2010,
the sales of the Iveco Massif were not as expected and Iveco decided to stop the agreement with
Santana. In 2011 the owner of the company, the Government of Andalusia, decided to close the
Santana Motor Company and its car factory and 1,341 people were retired prematurely. From

6,692 cars made in 2007, the company manufactured 1,197 in 2009 and not more than 769 in
2010.