The story of the mysterious Seat 600 next to the Moncloa Palace: it's been parked in the same place for 50 years.

The A-6 (Northwest Highway) is one of the busiest roads in all of Spain, and thousands of drivers travel along this highway, which connects Madrid with A Coruña, every day. Those who have traveled along it on their way to the Spanish capital, just a short distance from the Moncloa Palace, have likely seen something very unusual that caught their attention: a 1970s Fiat 600.

Furthermore, those who regularly drive near the Prime Minister's residence may have experienced a sense of déjà vu, as they've always seen this automotive relic parked in the parking lot of the Faculty of Statistical Studies at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM). The reality is that the car has been parked in that same spot for the past 60 years, and its history is both curious and fascinating.

The Seat 600 of the Faculty of Statistics of the UCM

As indicated by Tribuna Complutense , the institutional publication of the UCM, it all goes back to 1958, when Víctor Gómez and his wife Petra de la Cruz arrived in Madrid from a town in Toledo, Las Ventas with Peña Aguilera, and he got a job as a guard at the then Institution for the Training of Vocational Education Teachers, which also included a nearby home.

Even though the center moved to the city itself and the architect Miguel Frisac built the Faculty of Political Science and Sociology in the late 1960s, the caretaker kept his job (and his home) , which allowed him to continue living in the area and save up to buy a car, which he did in 1972: his choice was the Seat 600, the quintessential automobile in Spain at that time.

That legendary model became the family car, as Paco, the middle of the couple's three children, explains to the official media. In addition to replacing his father as a janitor, he still lives with his mother in the house near the university. Víctor cared for the Seat like another child throughout his life, even when he could no longer drive, until he passed away in 2011.

Despite being almost abandoned for a time, Víctor's children decided to restore it as a tribute to their father and took it to a workshop in Villanueva del Pardillo to restore it to the splendor with which the former guard drove it throughout Spain. Since then, the Seat 600 remains parked in the faculty parking lot, where it has become a symbol.

Since Paco still lives in the family home next to the Faculty of Statistical Studies, he admits to Tribuna Complutense that he drives the car for a few miles on weekends. He also confesses that the car is not for sale, although he has received numerous offers over the years due to the interest it arouses.