Portaro

PORTARO was the name of a popular Portuguese 4WD offroad utility vehicle which was based on the earlier Romanian original ARO 24 Series 4X4 model produced under license in Portugal. PORTARO 4WD models were made between 1975 until 1995. It was the second most successful Portuguese vehicle, second only to the UMM 4x4. The PORTARO name was an acronym of PORT for Portugal + ARO, the name of the main producer of the vehicle.

The Portaro was a cross-country 4X4 vehicle manufactured from imported parts in Portugal starting in 1975 by the entrepreneur and industrialist man Hipólito Pires with help from business partner José Megre. The Portaro was a modern version derived from the original ARO 240 4WD Series a from the 1970s.

The PORTARO 4X4 first appeared in 1975 and came in two main versions: The PORTARO Jipe 4X4, an offroad utility jeep, and later in 1977 the PORTARO Campina 4X4 a pick up truck version.

In the early 1980s three modified PORTARO models even won the Paris-Dakar Offroad Pharaoh Rallye driven by French and Portuguese teams, all with Volvo petrol engines, plus two Diesel units: A Campina 320 and a Campina Super 350 for the behind-the-scenes crew. The standard output PORTARO model production was an estimated average of 2000 units made a year.

PORTARO started in the 1970s when Hipólito Pires with José Megre got together as industrial partners, and was developed under the name "Projecto Portaro" that received large Portuguese State funds to help this new joint-venture automobile project. Once the cashflow was granted and delivered so did the PORTARO plan. It started and a few prototypes were made soon in early 1975.

The PORTARO vehicles were all built in a motorvehicle assembly plant that was owned by a company called Sociedade Electro-Mecanica de Automoveis Limitada or SEMAL for short, which was based at Parede, near Oeiras.

There was also a large SEMAL stockparts warehouse at Terrugem near Sintra where GV-SEMAL stocked large amounts of original ARO parts for them to use as resource. Another small assembly shop owned by SEMAL was open at Trajouce, where the larger TAGUS utility offroad model range was going to be assembled and built.

Meanwhile, Pires organized an agreement with Daihatsu Motor Co of Japan so that the Japanese would supply them with original Daihatsu running gear for the first generation of PORTARO vehicles and for a SEMAL new model called the GV TAGUS 4X4 Diesel.

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Wikipedia