- Santana Motor
Infobox_Company
company_name = Santana Motor, S.A.
company_
company_type =
company_slogan =
foundation =1956 inLinares, Jaén ,Spain
location =Linares, Jaén ,Spain
key_people =
num_employees = >600 Cite web|url=http://www.santana-motor.es/SantanaMotor/porta.htm|title=Who we are?|accessdate=2007-12-22|work=santana-motor.es]
industry =Automotive
products =Automobiles | revenue = | homepage = [http://www.santana-motor.es santana-motor.es]Santana Motor S.A. is a Spanish car manufacturer based in
Linares , in the province ofJaen ,Spain . The company was founded as "Metalúrgica de Santa Ana, SA" and originally manufactured agricultural equipment. The company was set up with a start up of just 3 million pesetas following a drive by the Spanish government in 1954 who were offering start-up incentives to local businesses to encourage development in theAndalucia region of Soutern Spain [Land Rover World Magazine July 2005, pg66-72] . The company decided to expand beyond its original products line and entered into talks with theRover car company in 1956 in an attempt to get a licensing agreement to build Land Rover Series models in their factory, in a similar way to the Minerva company in Belgium and Tempo in Germany, both of which built SeriesLand Rovers under license. An agreement was reached in 1956 and production began in 1958 it was licensed to buildLand Rover models. The Santana Motor company built Series Land Rovers under license in CKD form (Complete Knocked Down kits); essentially parts were shipped over from the Land Rover factory in Solihull and the Land Rovers were built up from this 'kit' at the Santana factory in Spain.From 1968 Santana began to develop its own versions of the Land Rover Series Models, developing new engines and new models and this close relationship with Land Rover led to the company to change its name from "Metalúrgica de Santa Ana, SA" to "Land Rover Santana, SA" [Land Rover World Magazine July 2005, pg66-72] .
In 1962 the company became responsible for promoting the Santana and Land Rover brands in the Central and South American Markets as well as Africa. CKD kits were also supplied to the Morrocan and Costa Rican markets by the company. Because of the harsh working lives vehicles lead in these environments, customer feedback on the range meant that Santana were often far more aware of each model's failings than the Land Rover company itself was. Because of the tight financial position of
British Leyland in this period (who owned Land Rover), Santana were often better placed than Land Rover was to deal with these failings. This meant that Santana began to engineer its own solutions to common problems into the models it produced and so originality between Santana's models and Land Rover's equivalents - a trend which lead to the companies position today. Up to the late 1980's the Santana models - supposed to be quickly and cheaply built versions of Land Rover's own product often ended up being superior to the Land Rover equivalent. For instance Santana models featured anatomical seats, disc-brakes, turbo diesel engines, taper-leaf springs, parabolic springs, and civilian specification Forward Control models before the Land Rover equivalents and even a civilian version of the Land Rover Lightweight called the "Ligero" which was never released by Land Rover [Land Rover World Magazine July 2005, pg66-72] .The Santana Motor Company ended its agreement with Land Rover in 1983 but continued to develop its own range of vehicles which remained visually similar to Land Rover's Series and Defender range.
The Santana Motor Company began a relationship with
Suzuki in the early 80's when Suzuki bought a 20% stake in the company and from 1986 Santana started to produce licensed versions ofSuzuki models such as theSuzuki Jimny /SJ andSuzuki Vitara . Although many of its products like the Santana Series VI/2500 were still visually similar to those of the Land Rover range the company moved even closer to Suzuki in 1991 when Suzuki gained a 49% in the company becoming the majority shareholder. A name change followed to Santana Motor,SA in the same year. [http://www.lr-mad.co.uk/santana.html]By the mid 1990's 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 VI/2500; the last Santana with visual similarities to Land Rover's current utility equivalent - the Defender, ended in 1994. The end of production of the Series 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 [http://www.lr-mad.co.uk/santana.html] .However Suzuki did sign a new license contract with an agreement to produce new disel engined Santana models. This contract was extended in 1997 to 2006 and eventually Santana's development of the
Land Rover Defender design led to the production of the PS-10. [http://www.geocities.com/guide2landrover/santana.html] The PS-10 was released as a concept vehicle in 1999, but production of the PS-10 did not actually begin until 2002.In 2006
Iveco and Santana signed a long-term agreement to co-develop products.Cite web|url=http://www.iveco.com/en-us/PressRoom/PressRelease/Pages/1073757790.aspx|title=Iveco and Santana finalized a framework agreement |accessdate=2007-12-22|work=iveco.com] The first offshoot of this co-production was theIveco Massif , a rebadged and restyled version of the Santana PS-10. iro.Cite web|url=http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/News/articleId=123283|title=Fiat's New SUV: Iveco Massif|accessdate=2007-12-22|work=edmunds.com] The Santana produced Massif will, rather ironically, go into direct competition with theLand Rover Defender , the direct descendant of the original utility Series Land Rover which spawned the entire Santana Motor Company.
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