Seat’s ambitions to become the “fleet manufacturer of choice” by 2012 have moved a step closer to reality after it signed its biggest fleet deal.

The company is to supply 500 new Leon Ecomotives to British Gas. The cars will be delivered over the next three months with some going to British Gas before the car’s official UK launch.

While orders are already being taken by Seat for its new eco Leon, which has a 1.6-litre diesel engine emitting 99g/km of CO2 (compared to the outgoing model’s 119g/km), other customers will not get their cars until March at the earliest.

The first 500 of the new car to arrive in the UK will all go to British Gas.

Colin Marriott, fleet manager at British Gas, said it was this type of flexibility from Seat’s UK fleet team - such as agreeing allocations with the Spanish manufacturing plant to get the cars to British Gas quicker - that helped win the contract.

"Seat has taken an industry-leading approach; innovative, flexible and way ahead of anyone else involved in the tender process,” he said.

"This is a fantastic addition to our fleet and the additional advanced engineering features help us to continue to lead the way on reducing emissions."

A spokesman for Seat confirmed that the UK fleet sales team has agreed for production allocations with its factory in Martorell, Spain to ensure the cars could be delivered to British Gas.

The team also organised roadshow events for British Gas staff and offered a driver training solution, should it be required.

The cars are all being supplied on a three-year contract hire agreement, although neither party was willing to divulge who the lease supplier is.

The deal was brokered by Seat UK’s newly-revamped Fleet and Business Sales team led by the head of fleet and business sales Nick Andrews, who said: "This is just the beginning: our aim is to make Seat a fleet manufacturer of choice and we will be working hard to achieve that ambitious target over the months and years ahead."

Seat has already put an initial group of 25 dealerships in place that are specially equipped to handle fleet customers.

This year Seat is planning to sell 15,000 cars into fleet, which is inline with its 2008 sales.