Santana brings the Cajal to Linares

Edu Blanco, CEO of Santana Motors, will present the Cajal, the brand's first all-terrain vehicle since the Linares factory closed in 2011, at an official event in Linares on 15 July 2026, with commercial sales following in the second half of the year.

The Cajal is a body-on-frame, permanent-4WD off-road SUV assembled in Linares from kits supplied by BAIC Group, the Chinese manufacturer whose BJ40 platform underpins the model. The vehicle measures 4.7 metres in length and seats five, with a 2.7-metre wheelbase. Buyers at launch will choose between a 2.0-litre petrol producing 245 hp and 386 Nm, or a 2.0-litre diesel producing 163 hp and 390 Nm, both paired with an automatic transmission and permanent 4WD as standard.

Off-road geometry is central to the specification. The Cajal carries a 37-degree approach angle, a 23-degree breakover angle, and a 31-degree departure angle, with 220 mm of ground clearance and 800 mm of wading depth.

The Cajal targets buyers considering a Jeep Wrangler or Ford Bronco who are deterred by price or origin. Spanish media cite the KGM Rexton, entry-priced from €39,900, as the nearest affordable benchmark. If Santana prices the Cajal below that figure, it will force legacy off-road brands to defend a segment they have left largely uncontested for a decade.

Santana's structural position rests on two assets that pure Chinese importers cannot replicate. The first is a functioning Andalusian assembly plant, revived through a €5 million commitment from a three-party consortium of Zhengzhou Nissan, BAIC Group, and Anhui Coronet Tech in May 2025. The second is a legacy brand carrying genuine emotional resonance across Spain and export markets, built over six decades from the company's founding in 1956. Blanco has described Santana's capital as 100% Spanish, a positioning that allows vehicles built on Chinese platforms to be sold as domestically assembled products.

"Tras el acuerdo que acabamos de cerrar con BAIC, en esta primera fase (2026), para salir más rápido, presentaremos los productos imagen de BAIC (un todo terreno diésel, de pura sangre con chasis de largueros, reductora y bloqueos delantero, trasero y central, y un SUV PHEV), pero con el logo Santana." — Eduardo Blanco, CEO, Santana Motors.

The Cajal is the first of four planned launches before the end of 2026. A range-extended electric variant is planned for a later phase and could qualify for the DGT "0" emissions label if it homologates more than 40 km of pure-electric range, opening access to urban low-emission zones where the diesel and petrol variants cannot enter. Spain's pure off-road segment currently carries almost no vehicles with an ECO or zero-emissions rating, leaving that regulatory window entirely open.

The broader industrial logic behind the revival is regional employment as much as product strategy. The project carries an investment of more than €20 million and targets roughly 200 jobs in Linares within two to three years, figures that secured government support and made the restart viable. A comparable domestic reference point is EBRO, which has already moved from SKD assembly to full vehicle production at its Barcelona plant, a threshold Santana will eventually need to reach if it is to defend its domestic-assembly positioning at scale.

The name Cajal honours Santiago Ramón y Cajal, the Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist. Santana has indicated that future models will also carry names drawn from Spanish history, regions, and influential figures.

The July presentation will be the first moment the market can test whether the pricing, specification, and brand story hold together. If they do, Santana will have demonstrated that Chinese-engineered platforms, assembled under a Spanish name in Andalusia, can compete on ground that Jeep and Ford have not had to defend for years.