2023-06-30 19:28:02
The Spanish manufacturer was awarded an export contract for 300 military trucks for the Portuguese Army
The design was carried out by Mario Gamarra FP
It was the year 1957 and the Portuguese Army was looking for a truck to renew its fleet. World-class companies such as ACLO, Bedford and Mercedes entered the contest.
Eduardo Barreiros saw in this call an opportunity to obtain authorization to produce trucks. So he commissioned the technicians at his newly opened Galicia Industrial engine transformation factory in Madrid to build a prototype.
The design was carried out by Mario Gamarra, who used the Barreiros EB-6 engine. The rest of the elements came from the transmission of a Douglas crane, the steering of a Ford truck and a cabin built by hand from sheet metal.
To improve grip on muddy terrain, they put ellipsoidal wheels on it, which also gave it an impressive appearance. In the demonstration before the Portuguese authorities, it was Eduardo Barreiros himself who drove the truck.
It won the tender and obtained an export contract for 300 military trucks for the Portuguese Army. However, Barreiros did not have a license to build trucks in Spain, so he organized a demonstration of the truck in front of General Franco in the El Pardo mountains where he got a phrase from the head of state that gave him the visa to start production.
The ‘El Abuelo’ engine had six cylinders, delivered 90 CV of power, a load of 3,000 kilos and had a 4×4 transmission.
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