David cyclecar

In 1907 the Centre Excursionista de Catalunya chose José María Armangué, aged 17, to drive one of its bobsleighs in the Coupe du Président de la République.source 1 There was no snow, so he put the sled on wheels and made a “down-car”, which he raced down the Tibidabo and the Rabassada road. Tired of pushing it back up, he fitted it with a motor.source 1source 2source 3 Down-car racing on the Tibidabo became popular, and in 1910 the brothers José María and Ramón Moré won the Copa Barcelona with one.source 1source 3 Before 1913 the Armangué brothers designed a four-stroke engine, which was never built, and patented a progressive gear change that became a hallmark of the cars to come.source 3

With his brothers or cousins Luis and Federico (“Frick”) Armangué, the Moré brothers, Fernando Comas, the Puig brothers and others, Armangué built the first car in 1913, in Sebastián Juanico’s workshop on the Avinguda del Tibidabo, a name often misspelt “Juanito”.source 1source 2source 3 They called it David, because the little car could take on much bigger ones.source 1source 4source 2 On 14 July 1914 the Fábrica Nacional de Autociclos David was founded in Barcelona with 65,000 pesetas of capital, when Armangué was 24, and by 1915, according to a newspaper article of 2014, about a hundred cars had been built. The works later stood at carrer Pallars 71, now 77, in Poblenou.source 1source 4source 2

Belts and a wide track

The David had a wooden frame, independent front suspension by transverse leaf springs one above the other, and a very wide track, which the RACC’s history of Catalan motoring credits with great stability and agility. Twin belts drove the rear wheels at an adjustable ratio, through the Armangués’ patented progressive change.source 2source 3 English Wikipedia says the belts and pulleys gave 16 speeds, and that the car had front-wheel brakes, but cites no source for either.source 5 The engines grew from air-cooled JAP V-twins to water-cooled MAG twins and fours, and from 1919 Davids had Hispano-Suiza, Ballot and Elizalde engines.source 1source 2 The same history says the most powerful could reach 130 km/h (81 mph) on the flat, a figure that is high for a cyclecar.source 2 There were two- and four-seaters and closed versions, and the duc de Montpensier ordered one; the model named after him was “the most perfected of the Davids”.source 4source 2

On Monday 29 October 1917 José María Armangué was killed in a flying accident at El Prat. The Moré brothers took control and turned the works to small two-seat taxis.source 1source 2source 3 In 1919 the firm became David, S.A., and Ernesto Rodríguez Iranzo, Moré’s regular co-driver, took charge of its technical office. From 1921 to 1923 cyclecars raced for the Trofeo Armangué in his memory; in 1922 “Frick” Armangué drove a Loryc-EHP in it.source 1 The factory closed in about 1923, after an attempt to convert it failed, and the unsold cars became taxis. Some sources date the end to 1922, others to 1923.source 1source 4source 2source 6

The taxis outlived the cars. David became Barcelona’s great taxi company, with about 1,000 cabs and a figure of Michelangelo’s David on their fronts, and in 1931 the city took David’s black and yellow as the colours of its taxis. The Edificio David on carrer d’Aribau opened that year.source 3source 6 The firm was also a Citroën agent and ran car parks and a towing service, built about ten electric cars on Citroën chassis in the 1940s, and in the 1950s returned to small cars with a three-wheeler, the David Torpedo 2S.source 3source 6 The Weiner microcar museum credited that car to Armangué, which cannot be, since he had died in 1917.source 1source 3 David, S.A. still exists, as a property company.source 2source 3

A David of 1917 is photographed on Wikimedia Commons, in the Catalan Wikipedia article, but where it is kept is not stated; no museum example and no auction result have been found.source 2