It is said motor racing was born at the same time as the first automobiles, as a way to fulfil the competitive instincts of the pioneer drivers. Likewise, SEAT's competition debut happened shortly after deliveries of the first SEAT car, the 1400, were started, at the end of 1953. In November that year, at the wheel of one of the very first examples of the new Spanish car maker, Josep Humet put the 1400's build quality to the test in the Thousand Kilometres Rally, from Barcelona to Pamplona in Navarre, and back to Barcelona.

That was the very first participation of a SEAT in a race. The international debut didn't take much longer: in the 1955 Monte-Carlo Rally, the SEAT 1400 number 378 driven by Arturo Bertoglio Cortella (an Italian living in Barcelona), with Ferrajoli as co-driver, finished 50th overall (among 272 classified cars). A SEAT had taken part for the first time in the world's most famous rally - some twenty years later, in 1977, the Spanish maker would go on to achieve a resounding success in the same event. The Group 4 SEAT 124 Especial 1800 driven by Antonio Zanini-Juan Petisco and Salvador Cañellas-Daniel Ferrater took the third and fourth positions overall, respectively, against the best of the best of international rallying.

Forty years later, in 2017, SEAT HISTÓRICOS celebrated that milestone by creating a replica of that SEAT 124-1800, and the car was raced in that year's Monte-Carlo Historique Rally and the next two editions, in 2018 and 2019. In 2020, to remember the 70th anniversary of SEAT's foundation in 1950, SEAT HISTÓRICOS is coming back to the Monte-Carlo Historique, now with a 1400 model specially prepared for regularity rallies, as a tribute to the first SEAT race car and that early participation in the 1955 Monte-Carlo Rally. The SEAT 1400 is the third oldest car among the three hundred entries in the 2020 Monte-Carlo Historique Rally.

The car prepared by SEAT HISTÓRICOS is a 1400 B model from 1957, with a power output of 88 bhp. The car boasts an elegant and striking look, with a light grey paint combined with a darker shade of grey in the wheels and dashboard, and equipped with extra fog and long-range lamps. The chassis is fitted with all the required reinforcements for mountain roads driving and the cabin has all the modern safety devices but keeping the style and equipment of the time, with retro-style bucket seats and a dash full of gauges, so as to keep the mechanics under control at all times.

The SEAT HISTÓRICOS' 1400 B had a successful debut in the Andorra Winter Rally, in December 2019. Driven by former Spanish rally champion Mia Bardolet, with Eloi Alsina as co-driver, the car finished in an astonishing seventh place overall. With this car in action in regularity rallies for historic vehicles, SEAT completes the first chapter of its motorsport history in the year of its 70th anniversary.