Arola

Daniel Manon of Lyon introduced the Arola in January 1976.source 1 His company, Arola SARL of Lyon-Corbas, had been founded the year before.source 2source 3 In law the car was a cyclomoteur carrossé, an enclosed moped, and so a licence-free car: a tubular chassis, a polyester body with a fixed roof, one seat and a 47 cc Sachs Saxonette, which the collector behind the original microcarfan.com called, in short, classic for the period.source 4source 2

What made it sell, in the old site’s reading, was that nothing was strange to a moped rider. You stepped in easily and sat as on a moped, on a seat without a backrest. The doors, of clear Plexiglas, could be left off or lifted away in a second, and the handlebars carried the same controls as a two-wheeler.source 4source 2 The basic 10 and the 11 had no speedometer and no ashtray; the 11 and the 12 had storage pockets; all three had an electric starter, a wiper and a chromed silencer.source 4 The 12 used a Motobécane engine instead, which needed a relay-and-reversing box, and so it was the one that could reverse.source 4source 2 By 1979 Arola had 500 agents and dealers.source 4

On to four wheels

The range grew from 1978. The SP, which stood for “Super Pratique” and not for Sport, was 43 cm (17 in) longer, a three-wheeler with a small load bed under a tilt cover, and the last Arola on three wheels.source 4source 2 The 14 and 15 of 1979 were the first four-wheelers. A steering wheel replaced the handlebars but stayed in the middle of the cabin, because a voiturette was not yet allowed to carry two adults; the seat gained a backrest, and the 15 had sliding glass windows in place of the 14’s ventilated Plexiglas.source 4source 2 A pick-up version, the Compacity, followed in 1980, though the German Wikipedia doubts it went into series production.source 2

The 18 of 1981 did away with the metal chassis altogether: polyester body panels on an aluminium frame and a polyester floor. It took 50 cc engines from BCB, Motobécane or Peugeot, or a BCB 125 cc good for 65 km/h (40 mph).source 4source 2 The 20, the car in the pictures here, looks much like it but has rear side windows; little more is known of it.source 2

The Minoto, and Aixam

The last Arola was not entirely Arola’s. The Minoto name and body came from Bel Motors, which had failed; Arola rebuilt the car as a self-supporting polyester shell from the autumn of 1982, with Motobécane or Peugeot 50 cc engines and, at the end, a 325 cc Lombardini diesel.source 4source 5source 1 By then the firm had moved to Aix-les-Bains.source 1

It went bankrupt in 1983, and the business was taken over and renamed Aixam the same year.source 1source 6 The old site dates the change of name and range to 1984, probably when the first Aixam-badged cars reached the showrooms.source 4 Aixam now dates its own history to the Arola, which it calls the first licence-free vehicle, in 1975.source 6 That is a company’s claim: the Willam City was sold without a licence in France from 1967.source 7

Bel-Motors International was formed in February 1977 by Jean Bellier, together with SOTRAM, to build and sell the pedal-started Véloto, according to the old site; the German Wikipedia dates the company to 1976.source 8source 9 It was based at Les Sables-d’Olonne in the Vendée.source 9source 10 The Minoto was its last car. It was shown in October 1979 with an 80 cc engine, and sold from 1980 in 50 cc and 80 cc forms, after Bellier had left to start again under his own name.source 5source 8 The Weiner museum calls it the C‑12 Minoto.source 10 Its name, says the German Wikipedia, plays on “miniature” and “automobile”.source 2

It was a conventional little car: a tubular steel chassis, a polyester body and the engine at the back, 2.20 m (7 ft 3 in) long, 1.28 m (4 ft 2 in) wide and 1.50 m (4 ft 11 in) high, weighing 230 kg (507 lb) and reaching 45 km/h (28 mph).source 5 At 80 cc it was above the 50 cc licence-free limit; what licence that version needed is not recorded. Bel Motors filed for bankruptcy in February 1981, and a one-year reprieve from the commercial court let it sell a few more before it closed.source 5 The German Wikipedia says the Minoto never reached the market at all; the old site’s dates and engines are more specific, but they are one collector’s notes.source 9

When the name came back as an Arola, the body shape was the same and the construction was not: a monocoque instead of a chassis.source 5source 4 The Weiner museum says Arola took over production; the German Wikipedia calls the two cars technically unrelated.source 1source 10source 9source 2 Arola, in short, took the name and the styling, not the engineering.

An Arola is on show at the Musée automobile de Vendée at Talmont-Saint-Hilaire, and the Bruce Weiner Microcar Museum had a 1977 type 11; its card recorded no estimate of how many survive.source 2source 1 Nothing is known of a club, and no sale by a serious auction house is on record.