I’ve never seen so many Toledos in one place before. Not the new, swoopily styled Toledo pictured here, but the old model: the one most people seem to have forgotten. These particular cars are black with yellow doors and a telephone number to call if you want to be taxied home from the local tapas bar. But opposite the main entrance to Barcelona airport lies another line-up of identical cars, this time under a large Seat flag, and these look anything but forgettable. This is the new Toledo, a car Seat sees as ‘redefining the saloon car’.

That grand claim fails on a technicality before we’ve even started, because the new Toledo is actually a hatchback, unlike the old one. That was just one of the problems facing the old car on the British market. Trying to sell a family saloon with no real image, one that was instantly forgettable visually and no better than average on the road, was always going to be challenging. Compare it with its successful Leon sibling and it’s an example of how linking the right product, the right brand and the right market makes the difference between winning or losing. So the Spanish firm has tried a new approach.

If you think the Toledo looks familiar you’re right. The Toledo is – put at its simplest – an Altea with a bigger boot. The cars are, in fact, identical from the front to the C-pillar (70 per cent of the components are shared between the two). Up until the C-pillar it’s the well-documented form that has become the new look of Seat cars with the Altea (born from motor show concept cars such as the Salsa). It features the characteristic styling line that curls underneath the headlamps, rises over the front wheels and plummets towards the rear wheelarches, and the oversized central grille with its prominent ‘S’ logo.