SEAT IBZ Concept - Frankfurt catchup

SEAT IBX Concept - next year's SEAT Ibiza Sport Tourer

SEAT showed off the IBZ Concept at Frankfurt – the preview of the SEAT Ibiza Sport Tourer for 2010 / 2011.

Shame on us for not covering anything last week on SEAT from the Frankfurt Show. In our defence, we did cover the hot Leon – the SEAT Leon Cupra R – when we first learned about it last month, but that’s no excuse for not covering the SEAT IBZ Concept, which is in reality heading for production next year.

SEAT does love a concept – especially a nice Blue one with a cream coloured interior – and they didn’t disappoint at Frankfurt. Take the badges and a bit of the detail off the IBZ and you could easily have been looking at an Alfa. And when it looks this good how did we miss it?

You’ve probably worked out from the picture above – and the Concept name – that this is really a SEAT Ibiza Sport Tourer. It appears to have more space than the standard Ibiza and a much more versatile layout. As it’s the same width and height as the Ibiza that’s probably an illusion caused by the glass roof, although it is stretched to bolt on the Sport Tourer back.

The IBZ Concept does look very SEAT if you analyse it, but updated. It gets LED lights and a honeycomb grill at the front and a full set of LEDs at the back.

SEAT are pretty good at translating Concepts in to reality without losing too much of the flair. And frankly we reckon this could be a big seller for SEAT. They really haven’t encroached much on VW’s own sales – despite some cracking models – but this Ibiza Sport Tourer could well do it.

Lots of information in the SEAT IBZ Concept Press Release.