You might think a fellow could use a Jeep to get around in the middle of a Romanian winter, especially if you still believe in the old stories about Romanian road conditions even though it is no longer true (thanks, in part, to €240 million from ERBD).

As luck would have it, the Romanians thought about the same thing back in the 1950s… not too many years after the Soviets were impressed by the Jeeps they saw around Germany. Communist leadership in Romania saw an opportunity to produce vehicles for the Warsaw Pact, so they set up ARO (derived from “Auto Romania”).

In 1957, the first ARO 4×4s were created by hand, had only 50 horsepower, and featured manual windshield wipers.

By 1959, industrial managers had consolidated production facilities, improved worker efficiency, increased horsepower and introduced electrical windshield wipers.

By the 1960s, ARO was gaining an international reputation for strength and durability. Romania began exporting thousands of 4×4 vehicles to a larger number of countries, including non-Warsaw nations like China and Colombia.

Continuing to improve, ARO took the international competition circuit by storm, winning several major rally races and functionality challenges as early as 1970. In fact, in 1972, Ford Motor Company organized a significant test of durability from manufacturers worldwide where ARO beat Jeep, Ford, and Range Rover. (Just imagine the glee of party leaders in spanking the West.)

ARO slowly diversified into a select, few different models (varying in size, style and power configuration). Check out this ARO 243 (I believe circa 1980s), which was resting at the park down the street from me.

Of course, once the “revolution” happened in 1989, ARO began to partner with companies like Peugot, VW, Daewoo, Toyota and old-rival Ford who, by that time, had become more advanced and efficient in producing quality parts and engines. Export expanded to Canada, England, Australia, Italy, France, Greece, and Germany while ARO opened up new production facilities in Portugal and Spain (but were sold there under a different name, for marketing purposes). ARO continued to win international rally competitions such as the Pharaons Rally-Raid.

Different from the modern fru-fru posers like Escalade or RX 400h, ARO has thus far remained true to its original calling: building tough, inexpensive SUVs which are true 4×4 performers unburdened by the expensive complexity of electronic seat adjusters, butt warmers, or other unnecessary conveniences. They deliver affordable off-road vehicles that conquer terrain like champs, not overpriced urban fakes.

Marketing research and sales statistics apparently demonstrate that fancy looks aren’t always what sells a buyer. Some people actually want top performance for bottom dollar, which is a niche market you can profit in. Even still, prototypes from as far back as the 1980s show ARO designers are capable of interesting aesthetics, when called upon.

Take a look around; see if you can find that legendary toughness of ARO now for sale in the United States as the Cross Lander 244X (assembled by their private-label partner in Brazil).

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 10th, 2006 at 4:23 pm and is filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.