Santana Motor - Suzuki Years

Suzuki Years

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 1980s when Suzuki bought a 20% stake in the company and from 1986 Santana started to produce licensed versions of Suzuki models such as the Suzuki Jimny/SJ and Suzuki 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.

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 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.

In March 1995, Suzuki decided to desinvest 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.

Nevertheless the company continued to manufacture new models of cars for Suzuki. Suzuki signed a new license contract with an agreement to produce new diesel engined Santana models of Suzuki off roaders. This contract was extended in 1997 to 2006. Additionally, Santana's continuous development of the Land Rover Defender design led to the production of the PS-10. The PS-10 was released as a concept vehicle in 1999, but production of the PS-10 did not actually begin until 2002.