1977-1985 ARO 243

“Authentic. Absolutely. For decades, ARO 24 has thrived on what others would call abuse. Originally designed as a military vehicle for the Romanian army, this SUV has been through just about every rough terrain and weather condition on Earth. Pretty pictures, flowery words and silly selling statements are what you hear from the other guys. ARO says Get Down To Earth.”

It’s neither a Jeep nor a Land Rover, but it’s equally tough as nails — meet the ARO 243. ARO, short for “Auto Romania”, began its existence as a repair shop for army vehicles. In 1957, the state owned enterprise began producing licensed copies of the Russian Jeep GAZ-69. The first series of hand-assembled Jeeps soon was “upgraded” with better engines and transferred into mass production. By 1975, nearly 80,000 GAZ-69 copies had left the factory.

In 1972, after six years of development, ARO finally launched their own model, called Series 24, which spawned numerous body styles, identified by the last digit: the pictured 243 three-door vehicle, for instance, was accompanied by the 242 pickup and the 244 four-door version.

The design followed a general dogma that was common for most socialist products, sporting very simple shapes that were easy to produce and an utterly rational character rather than emotional aesthetics. Unnecessary embellishment? Njet, comrade! On the other hand, this simplicity makes the car look timeless in hindsight, and renders it an interesting counterpart to the Land Rover or Toyota 4x4 vehicles of similar vintage.

The ARO proved to be a success. Before 1989, around 90 percent of the production was exported to 110 countries, providing the Romanian government with desperately needed hard currency. The ARO’s toughness didn’t pass unnoticed abroad, and soon foreign companies began to license-build ARO vehicles. In Portugal the “Portaro” became the second-most popular vehicle of domestic production, while Italians drove the “Enduro X4”, produced by ACM. ARO Series 24 vehicles were also assembled in Manaus, Brazil. Common to these versions was the immense technical improvement over the original, mainly by providing modern engines.

The end of the communist era also was the downfall of ARO, which slowly dwindled into bankruptcy in 2006. Incidentally, the final nail in the coffin came from a Cuban-born businessman, John Perez, who already had failed to establish a franchise ARO dealership network in the U.S. in 1998. The Romanian government sold a major share of ARO to John Perez in 2003. But instead of investing in the venture, El Cubano and the authorities got invested in mutual accusations and court action, which resulted in the end of the company.