The challenge is to have Spain's Car Industry from the post-war onwards to be roughly comparable to its neighbors in Italy and France by the time of the Spanish transition to democracy.

Apart from an earlier Pact of Madrid (with American aid in reality being comparable what its European neighbors had received under the Marshall Plan) and resultant earlier Spanish Miracle along with General Franco possibly kicking the bucket a decade earlier, what other PODs would help lay the groundwork for improving the Spanish Car Industry?

Rather though then simply focusing on Seat, Authi and Barreiros, am mainly interested in Spain's other domestic carmakers that never really got off the ground for whatever reason and having them grow to become mostly independent largely successful carmakers.

The following four below come to mind though not sure if there are any other little known potentially viable car projects in Spain during the post-war period.

AFA - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AFA_(automobile)
Eucort - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucort
Pegaso (if not Hispano-Suiza)
Orix - https://jalopnik.com/this-is-not-a-volkswagen-beetle-1821524080
 
Have FIAT rebuild their FIAT-Hispania Factory in Guadalajara after the Civil War damages that had Hispano-Suiza moved the tooling from the damaged plant.

Gianni Agnelli oversee it after his combat tour in Russia was over, his Grandfather pulling some strings.

It would be a small factory, nothing like FIAT's works in Turin, but has the advantage of not being bombed flat in WWII

Spanish FIATs are ready to be sold to a car hungry world, the Ratoncito 500

Yeah, this steals a bit of the 'Italian Miracle' for Spain
 
Was thinking of something to the effect where Pegaso survives to the present as Spain's rival to Ferrari (and Maserati), while Eucort becomes Spain's Saab with Orix becoming Spain's Volkswagen.

Seat, Authi and Barreiros meanwhile would largely remain unchanged.
 
What's Spanish for chutzpah? :)

desfachatez? (Spanish for impudence apparently)

Seems even if they wanted to Volkswagen were in no position to pursue legal action against Orix, due to Volkswagen themselves being on the receiving of claims they copied designs as was the case with Tatra and others (with Tatra even launching legal action against Volkswagen after WW2).

At the same time Orix could properly develop its Beetle-like 610 in ways Volkswagen themselves never bothered to do with the Beetle in OTL, and to further rub salt into the wounds Orix's "Beetle clone" could conceivably deliver roughly the same or better performance compared to the Beetle with only a Flat-Twin engine (and better aerodynamics similar to the Volkswagen Beetle-based Volkhart Sagitta V2). Which would in turn allow for a Flat-4 to produce an earlier Type 3/4 and of course a Flat-6 for an earlier Volkswagen EA128, Chevrolet Corvair and Porsche 911 or V8 for an earlier Tatra 613, if Orix decide to stick with the rear-engined RWD layout until the late-60s to mid-70s.
 
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Spanish FIATs are ready to be sold to a car hungry world, the Ratoncito 500

Apparently places like Spain (along with Argentina and Yugoslavia) preferred building localized versions of the Fiat 600, which unlike the OTL 2+2 air-cooled 2-cylinder Fiat 500 had the advantage of seating 4 and using a small 4-cylinder capable of being enlarged to 1-litres+.

Thought was given to making the Fiat 500 into a proper 4-seater during development though there were fears it would eat into the sales of the larger Fiat 600, which leaves the issue of the Fiat 500's air-cooled 2-cylinder engine holding it back from Seat producing a version of the Fiat 500.
 
Such cars would have had the advantage in US sales of not being made in Germany. While wartime memories were not as strongly inclined against the Germans, they were very much against the Japanese until the 70's and 80's, especially with WWII veterans and relatives. Some of those embittering memories also carried over to the Germans. The Spanish have no such baggage in a US market, and this may factor in to better sales.
 
Apparently places like Spain (along with Argentina and Yugoslavia) preferred building localized versions of the Fiat 600, which unlike the OTL 2+2 air-cooled 2-cylinder Fiat 500 had the advantage of seating 4 and using a small 4-cylinder capable of being enlarged to 1-litres+.

Thought was given to making the Fiat 500 into a proper 4-seater during development though there were fears it would eat into the sales of the larger Fiat 600, which leaves the issue of the Fiat 500's air-cooled 2-cylinder engine holding it back from Seat producing a version of the Fiat 500.

But the 600 is far in the future.
FIAT of Spain could be making 500A for US export while the War is still going on. Sure, it's tiny I4, but unlike the Crosley (or later FIATs), it was very reliable along with the rest of the car.
If they can get them in the US, and sell them at the Crosley price range, they will make money, lots of it.

As @Oldbill posted, the US didn't have a lot of bad feelings towards Spain, and as the Cold War started, Franco moved into the 'Premature Anti-Communist' status from the 'Fascist Dictator in bed with the Moose and the Mustache'
That it's a FIAT not made in Italy won't mean much after Italy collapsed, Italian products never got the hate that the Germans and Japanese got, and the Spanish-American War was ancient history in American eyes.

Spain has a tiny window to get into the American Market to make&sell many cars, and this is it, while everyone else is either retooling from War Production, or being bombed flat.

A few cars making into the US during the War would make a huge splash for PR 'The only new car you can buy for '44'
and that it would be cheap to buy and operate, great for those with the 'A' gas ration sticker
 
The POD for this challenge though is after WW2.

Whatever it is, they have to be selling in volume before 1947 as to not get flooded by exports from the UK. They don't have much time.

A decision to start exporting autos that starts in 8-45 is too late for where OTL Spanish industry was, and the mindset of the existing concerns like Hispano were not even thinking of doing a vertically auto manufacturer till 1948, and exporting a almost a decade later
 
Which would require a POD from before WW2, since OTL Spain was underdeveloped via various areas.

The main idea behind a post-war POD is Spain and thus its domestic motor industry benefiting from a late-1940s Pact of Madrid (with similar levels of US aid as its neighbors under the Marshall Plan) and Spanish Miracle due to an earlier US recognition of Spain as an anti-communist ally.
 
Import a batch of German automotive engineers after WW2.
I had a similar thought: turn over M-B or BMW to Spain after WW2 as reparations. (Yes, you'd need more Spanish participation on the Allied side...)

The idea of a '46 540K badged as a Hisso appeals to me.:cool:
 
Orix could have gained the designs for BMW's Flat-Twin motorcycle engines as war reparations given the founder's background of using said engines, which formed the basis for the Orix 610.

Mercedes-Benz is another matter, perhaps Spain at minimum gains the designs for the pre-war rear-engine Boxer-powered Mercedes-Benz prototypes. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercedes-Benz_130
 
Orix could have gained the designs for BMW's Flat-Twin motorcycle engines as war reparations given the founder's background of using said engines, which formed the basis for the Orix 610.

Mercedes-Benz is another matter, perhaps Spain at minimum gains the designs for the pre-war rear-engine Boxer-powered Mercedes-Benz prototypes. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercedes-Benz_130
Either of those could be cool. A Spanish variant of the 328? Or of the 150H? (Chance of attracting Bertone or somebody? Or maybe just Raab, who did the 356s?) Maybe Ferry Porsche?

One even longer shot crossed my mind: evac of the Auto Union racing team, built & raced postwar under the Spanish flag.
 
I would say have a more stable political situation in the first 40 years of the 20th century.

Emerging auto industries where often stifled by revolutions or economic downturns. The ideal situation may be to stabilize the Spanish monarchy in the teens or twenties. From there you'd have fertile ground to allow Spanish engineers to play with any ideas pertaining to automobiles that got killed OTL due to national factors.
 
In essence the Orix 610 can be described as basically an earlier BMW 700 with Beetle like styling.

Changing the political situation 4 decades prior would be too easy a solution, whereas Spain gaining an earlier post-war Pact of Madrid and aid equivalent to what its European neighbors under the Marshall Plan is an interesting scenario. Especially in the sense that Spain despite recovering from the civil war prior to WW2 was already underdeveloped as opposed to its neighbors and even Japan, who were largely devastated yet managed to recover fully and perform even better (as wartime destruction in OTL provided planners with a clean slate).
 
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