Unsquare Ariel
UNSQUARE ARIEL
CW READERS' COLLECTION
A Four of a different color
"THAT BIKE SHOULDN’T have won Best of Show,” the stern (and formidably large) man said, pointing at the 1956 Ariel Square 4 parked nearby. “It’s the wrong color for the year. That particular shade of red wasn’t available until 1957.” Well, there’s one in every crowd, and thankfully at CW's Cleveland Show, there was only one. But while the Ariel’s owner, Jerry Romano of Springfield, Michigan, agrees that his bike is the wrong color, he claims the outspoken critic isn’t right, either.
“The shade is a little lighter than it should have been,” explains Romano, “but it’s maroon, not red. He’s probably thinking of the Chinese Red that came out in ’57.”
Romano, it would appear, knows a thing or two about Square 4s-but then what would you expect from a man who owns eight of the Edward Turner-designed, 997cc, ohv four-cylinders? To hear Romano tell it, his obsession ran the usual course: “In 1956, when I was 16, I saw a guy take off on an Ariel, and the sound it made with the tire burning...there’s nothing else like it! I knew I had to have one.”
Unfortunately, reality delayed Romano’s date with fate. He got married, got busy at work and played around with cars-Pontiac GTOs, Olds 442s and a succession of Nash Metropolitans.
Of his ’56, Romano says, “I bought it out of Hemmings Motor News in 1995 for $3000. I got it down in Maryland and brought it home in boxes. The previous owner had started to restore it, but I think he realized he didn’t have the talent or the money for it. I tore it all apart and basically started from scratch. I did all the restoration work myself, except for the chrome.”
A former General Motors toolmaker who took early retirement, Romano, 59, says he now spends most of his days restoring motorcycles.
“I’ve got a little workshop out behind the house where I just like to tinker. I’ve got a good enough retirement package that I can afford to spend a couple of hundred dollars a month messing around with bikes.” Keeping the Ariels from bumping into one another is a newly restored BSA Gold Star.
The CW show marked just the third time Romano had displayed the Ariel, and he didn’t know what to expect. “You know, it’s funny,” he says. “The first show I took it to was at the Gilmore Car Museum, and it didn’t win a thing. Then, last September,
I took it to a British Only show and it won Best of Class, beating out a Vincent Black Shadow. It won Best of Show, too, which was sort of a People’s Choice thing, so I guess I can’t complain.”
Incorrect color or not, the people have spoken. And with rare exception, they’re not complaining, either.
-Brian Catterson >
