I Spotted A Romanian Car That I Didn't Even Know Existed

Sometimes life throws you a curve ball and you have to back away from the plate instead of swinging at it. Earlier this week, while out walking the neighborhood with my elderly basset hound, I spotted a weird old four-by-four that I didn't immediately recognize. At first I thought it was a dilapidated Land Rover, but my brain couldn't place it as anything ever sold here in the U.S. market. I then jumped to assuming it was something from Japan, like a Land Cruiser Prado or a Nissan Patrol, but a quick sift through images of various generations quickly put that theory to bed. 

Without a grille or any kind of badging, I knew it was going to be a tough one. I tossed the machine into a couple of group chats and a friend from the West Coast correctly identified this rusty and moldy machine as an ARO 244 Hunter. I have dedicated my life to weird cars, but somehow this bizarre Romanian contraption had evaded my ken for all of my 38 years on this earth. Huh, I guess I'm one of today's lucky 10,000, and if you are also learning about ARO from my post here, so are you. The story is too fascinating not to tell. 

ARO is a shortening of Auto Romania, a company which first got its start in 1957 by producing soviet off-roader GAZ-69s under license. It wasn't until the 1972 launch of the 24-series "Hunter" that ARO really came into its own, however. These interesting trucks were built in a variety of body styles from 1972 until 2006, and could be powered by any number of gas and diesel engines from Toyota, Peugeot, Ford, Cosworth, Chrysler, VM Motori, and others, as well as ARO's own engine designs. This particular example appears to be a post-1995 facelifted version with twin headlamps on either side of a rectangle grille, but it's difficult to pinpoint exactly what year it is for this non-ball knower.  

ARO 24-series trucks were sold damn near everywhere, with most of these built for export or under license in Spain, Portugal or Brazil. According to this old Road & Track article, the Romanians sold ARO vehicles in more than 55 countries nationwide, but never the United States. There have been a couple of efforts to import ARO trucks to the U.S. beginning in 1989 with the growing popularity of family 4x4 vehicles, and as recently as 2005.

None of those import schemes ever paid off, however, so I'm extremely curious how this machine arrived to my neighborhood on a U-haul trailer. Was it a proof-of-concept import that never came to fruition, or did some off-road enthusiast bite off a pretty big hunk of project car for themselves? The driver's side door had a pretty big rust hole in it, and the whole thing looks like it hid out under some creeping vines for about thirty years. If they're looking to build themselves a weird off-roader to stand out from the crowd, maybe this is the way to do it. It'll take a bit of fabrication skill to make this machine like-new again, however. 

There's no telling what engine lurks in that engine bay, but a modern enthusiast could have a pretty neat car if they put some modern turbo diesel or V8 between the shock towers. I hope whoever hauled this thing home has a plan to revive it and the skills to make it happen. If you're the lucky owner, drop me a line, let's chat.