Investigación y Proyectos de Vehículos Especiales, S.A. (IPV) was a Spanish heavy vehicle manufacturer based in

A Pontenova A Pontenova is a municipality in the Spanish province of Lugo. It has a population of 3199 (Spanish 2003 Census) and an area of 136 km². A Pontenova and the Turia Valley A Pontenova is part of the Turia Valley or “Valle del Turia” ...

, Galicia. IPV's parent company, Mafsa, started in 1965 as a joint venture of three local automotive workshops. They had for some years re-conditioned ex-

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlism, Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebeli ...

light 4x4 trucks, mostly of Italian OM manufacture, and fitted them with diesel engines. The first Mafsa product was a narrow-width truck, with a very elementary cab and either a Barreiros or Perkins engine, specifically designed for the northwestern Spain logging industry, and nicknamed ''carroceta''. As Mafsa had no sales network, the ''carrocetas'' were only sold from the plant. Nevertheless they were quite successful, and allowed Mafsa to expand into more general-purpose 4x4 trucks, which were specially in demand for fire-fighting and construction off-road applications. Mafsa eventually appointed a few dealers around Spain and therefore became a truck maker worthy of the name. By then the trade mark was Mafsa itself, but in 1972 it was switched to IPV. The IPV model range grew gradually, up to vehicles of 270 horsepower and 24 ton

gross weight In science and engineering, the weight of an object is the force acting on the object due to gravity. Some standard textbooks define weight as a vector quantity, the gravitational force acting on the object. Others define weight as a scalar qua ...

. IPV switched to OEM engines from

MAN A man is an adult male human. Prior to adulthood, a male human is referred to as a boy (a male child or adolescent). Like most other male mammals, a man's genome usually inherits an X chromosome from the mother and a Y chromo ...

, and to a new, more modern-looking, and more comfortable cab. Especially interesting were a bi-modal ( road/railway) model and a dockside tractor to pull

semi-trailer A semi-trailer is a trailer without a front axle. In the United States, the term is also used to refer to the combination of a truck and a semi-trailer; a tractor-trailer. A large proportion of a semi-trailer's weight is supported by a trac ...

s along short distances. IPV went into receivership in October 2006, and all activity ceased.

Gallery

File:IPV grua.jpg, IPV with crane File:IPV grua 2.jpg, IPV with crane 2

Gallery

See also