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 the
Andalucia region of Southern Spain. The company decided to expand beyond its original products line and entered into talks with the
Rover 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,
Tempo in Germany and
Morattab company in Iran, all built Series
Land Rovers under licence. An agreement was reached in 1956 and production began in 1958 it was licensed to build Land Rover models. The Santana Motor company built Series Land Rovers under licence 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 1960 to 1961 a growing percentage of parts started being manufactured in Spain. By 1968 100% of the vehicles components were locally produced. Apart from minor details (electric system, rear tailgate) the Spanish built Land Rover were identical to their Solihull counterparts and their quality was comparable. Santana
Land Rover 88 Series 3 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 the company to change its name from "Metalúrgica de Santa Ana, SA" to "Land Rover Santana, SA". 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, now sold as 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. The PS-10 was released as a concept vehicle in 1999, but production of the PS-10 did not actually begin until 2002.
Gamesa accord In October 2005, Santana Motor and
Gamesa Corporacion Tecnologica agreed to launch a joint industrial project for the manufacture of components for renewable energy equipment at the Linares plant. To this end, the two firms formed a new investee company, Aemsa Santana, in which Gamesa was the majority shareholder with 70% and Santana Motor participated held the remaining 30%. Subsequently, in June 2007, the Daniel Alonso Group of
Avilés and Santana agreed to start up a joint industrial project for the manufacture of wind towers in various production centres in Spain, including that of Linares. This agreement led to the constitution of a company called Windar, of which Aemsa-Santana was a part. The new company, Windar, built a plant in Linares with a total surface area of 10,000 square meters, which was used for the assembly of sections of towers for Gamesa's latest generation wind turbines. This production plant had a capacity of 800 tower sections per year, already employed more than a hundred workers and reached 120 when the plant was at full capacity, with an investment of approximately €4 million. The presence of Gamesa and Grupo Daniel Alonso in the industrial complex in Linares was a great boost for Santana Motor, not only to maintain the industrial activity that it had until now, but also to open a new production line that enabled the consolidation of employment levels. Likewise, this agreement represented the establishment in
Andalusia for the first time of a large company dedicated, among other activities, to the design, manufacture and maintenance of wind turbines.
Iveco cooperation In 2006
Iveco and Santana signed a long-term agreement to co-develop products. The first offshoot of this co-production was the
Iveco Massif, a rebadged and restyled version of the Santana PS-10. The Santana produced Massif would go into direct competition with the
Land Rover Defender, the direct descendant of the original utility Series Land Rover which spawned the entire Santana Motor Company. In 2008 FIAT-
Iveco announced that it had signed an option to buy Andalusian government-owned Santana Motor, depending on the success of the
Massif.
Closure and liquidation With the change of industrial partner from Suzuki to Fiat-
Iveco, Santana ended its relationship with Suzuki in 2009 and from that moment it no longer made any Suzuki car under licence. The ending of the partnership with Santana meant that in many countries like Spain, Suzuki no longer provided customer support for cars made by Santana under the Suzuki licence and brand, and directed owners to Santana because it considered them to be Santana cars. This represented a serious problem for owners of many Suzuki models that were exclusively made by Santana (such as the
Suzuki Jimny convertible), for which it is now difficult to find parts. When Santana broke with Suzuki, Suzuki kept the distribution network that had been created by Santana over the preceding decades. From then onwards, Santana was not able to sell the cars that it was manufacturing under its own brand name, nor through its established dealers. Only the access to the commercial network of Iveco would have allowed the company to go on. By 2010, however, sales of the
Iveco Massif were not as expected and Iveco decided to end the agreement with Santana. In 2011 the owner of the company, the
Regional Government of Andalusia, decided to close the Santana Motor company and its car factory and 1,341 people were laid off or retired prematurely. From 6,692 cars made in 2007, the company manufactured 1,197 in 2009 and as few as 769 in 2010. == Revival ==