Barreiros

The company was founded in 1954 as "Barreiros Diesel S.A." by Eduardo Barreiros and based in Madrid. Established initially as a producer of diesel engines, at Ourense the company then expanded to make commercial vehicles, reaching licensing agreements with French Berliet (truck cabs), British AEC (buses and coaches), German Hanomag (agricultural tractors), and Vidal & Sohn Tempo-Werke GmbH (light vans and trucks), all of them driven by Barreiros's own engines. Additionally a pay-in-kind contract with Polish Star was active in the late 1950s, by which engineless Star chassis-cab trucks were exported to Spain, while Barreiros engines were sent to Poland; the whole resulted in Barreiros-engined Star tractors being sold in China (and Polish trucks in Spain).

Later on Barreiros branched out into the production of passenger cars by means of cooperation (and capital links) with the Chrysler Corporation. An agreement was reached with Chrysler in 1963 to build the Dodge Dart, allowing the company to enter the car market. Sold as the Barreiros Dart, it had modified front styling, a four-speed gearbox, and all-around disc brakes. During that time, the Spanish automobile market was strongly protected, making entering it effectively only possible by domestic manufacturing. As the 1960s progressed, the range was extended with some smaller models from Chrysler's French subsidiary, Simca. The Barreiros-made Simca 1000 was launched in 1966, and later the Simca 1200 joined the range (in fact the French Simca 1100, but with a bigger standard engine for the Spanish market).

In 1969, Chrysler Europe took complete control of the company.

In 1975, Barreiros became for the first time the sole source for a Chrysler Europe model when the production lines of the slow-selling Chrysler 180 series were moved to Madrid from Simca's factory in Poissy. Unlike in most other European countries, the Chrysler 180 became relatively popular in Spain. Barreiros also continued to assemble other Chrysler Europe models for the domestic market, including Simca 1307 (renamed Chrysler 150 in Spain to be more in line with the popular 180) and Simca Horizon.

On the truck and bus side, a full range of light, medium and heavy models was offered, still marketed as Barreiros in Spain and as Dodge or Fargo elsewhere, but eventually the Dodge badge prevailed in all markets.