Manuel Díez Alegría

Manuel Díez Alegría is named in the history of the Authi car company of Pamplona as the man to whom the presidency of the firm passed in 1973, the year British Leyland raised the share capital to 2,400 million pesetas and left the remaining Spanish shareholders with very little influence. Authi was a Spanish manufacturer of Austin and Morris cars under licence, founded in 1965 and wound down in 1976 when its plant was sold to SEAT. A regional Spanish newspaper describes the Authi president as a Spanish diplomat from the Asturian council of Llanes, which matches Manuel Díez-Alegría Gutiérrez (1906 to 1987), a Spanish army engineer officer born in Llanes who became Chief of the Defence High Command from 1970 to 1974, sat in the Cortes and the Royal Academies, and served as ambassador to Egypt from 1976 to 1978. The Authi accounts give only his name and the date, so the identification with the general rests on that matching birthplace and profession, and the exact dates of his presidency are not settled in the sources read.