Authi

The Authi car company of Pamplona, Spain, was founded in 1965 as a result of a collaboration between BMC (the British Motor Corporation) and NMQ (Nueva Montaña Quijano).

BMC needed a way to sell their cars in Spain, which at the time had strict rules to protect local automobile manufacturers from imported competitors and to protect local companies from foreign takeover. Thus, Authi built almost identical copies of a range of Austin and Morris cars. The company survived only until 1976 when British Leyland ran out of money and the almost new Authi plant was sold to the SEAT car company after the failure of a bid for it from General Motors.

The company's name stands for Automoviles de Turismo Hispano Ingleses: it is generally written and spoken as a word rather than as an acronym.

The Authi firm was officially registered on 12 November 1965 under the chairmanship of Eduardo Ruiz de Huidrobo y Alzurena, with its head office and premises at Arazuri, a few kilometers to the west of Pamplona. The share capital was held by a Santander metal working business called Nueva Montaña Quijano S.A. (NMQ) which had originally been founded in 1899. The real owners of the business were the Banco de Santander and the Quijano family. The bank also had a controlling interest in Fasa Renault which had been building Renaults at their Valladolid plant for the Spanish market since 1951. NMQ had been supplying engines for the Spanish-built Renaults. Work dried up when Renault moved their engine production in-house. Therefore, BMC's search for a Spanish partner able to build their cars for the Spanish market in Spain had coincided with NMQ's search for another automotive partner able to provide designs that could be produced locally.

The first Spanish-built Authi product, an MG 1100, emerged in January 1967. A Mini C 1275 followed in October, featuring leather seats and a walnut dashboard, along with various other pieces of additional equipment not featured by Minis produced in England.

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