{"id":25011,"date":"2017-02-16T15:16:29","date_gmt":"2017-02-16T14:16:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.museonicolis.com\/en\/ariel-con-sidecar\/"},"modified":"2024-07-16T11:48:08","modified_gmt":"2024-07-16T09:48:08","slug":"ariel-square-four-con-sidecar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.museonicolis.com\/en\/ariel-square-four-con-sidecar\/","title":{"rendered":"Ariel, 1932, Square Four with sidecar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ariel “Square Four” with sidecar, 1932, England<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

Ariel<\/strong> is one of England\u2019s oldest companies,<\/strong> one of its founders was J. Starley<\/strong> to whom we owe the majority of innovative inventions on bicycles back then (for instance, tangent-spoked wheels with Hillman).
\nThe Ariel<\/em> name comes from the spirit<\/strong> who appears in William Shakespeare’s play The Tempest<\/strong> to highlight the lightness of Ariel bicycles.
\nThe company later started producing motorcycles and cars; in 1905<\/strong> it was chosen to represent England in the International Cup<\/strong>. Ariel entered the history books as the first<\/strong> company to believe in the \u201cSquare Four<\/strong>\u201d engine, a project by Edward Turner <\/strong>that provided for the use of 4 cylinders arranged at the 4 corners of an imaginary square, <\/strong>as the bike shown at the museum.
\nThe Square Four of the museum is a 1932<\/strong> model, from the first series (called 4F<\/strong>) with hand shifter<\/strong> and 601cc displacement, raised from the previous 500cc to allow the use of the sidecar, an other accessory present.
\nThe model will be produced until 1959,<\/strong> giving room to a different production of light 2-stroke motorcycles, one of the last attempts of the British company before its closure in 1967, struggling against the Japanese rivals.<\/p>\n\r\n\r\n \r\n