Salvador
Barcelona, Spain.
The Salvador car was produced by Industrias Salvador — a Catalan (Barcelona-based) company founded by Salvador Grau originally known for manufacturing automotive wheels.
Salvador was also a brand of motorcycles, manufactured in Barcelona between 1923 and 1930. The company expanded into automobile (or rather “cyclecar / autocycle”) production around 1922.
However — and importantly — their foray into cars was extremely short-lived. Production started and ended within that same year.
The sole car was produced in Barcelona and was a small cyclecar (autocycle) — a lightweight, minimal car — powered by a 2-cylinder V-engine from MAG, currently at Col·lecció d’Automòbils Salvador Claret in Sils, Girona.
The 1922 Salvador occupies a niche but interesting place — akin to a “ghost car.” It exemplifies the kind of opportunistic, small-scale experiments that proliferated in the early 1920s across Europe, when many small workshops tried their hand at automobile manufacturing. It shows that Barcelona (and Catalonia) was not only a user of foreign cars, but home to ambitious local engineering and manufacturing — even if only briefly.
