Ariel Square Four in the desert

What to take for an extensive tour, including heading off into the Saharan desert? Why, an Ariel Square Four, of course.

Images: MORTONS ARCHIVE

Now, if one was heading off to the ‘Land of Sun and Sand’ – as the feature with which this accompanying picture was published, on June 25, 1936, was entitled – how many would choose an Ariel Square Four for the journey?

With the feature in the November 2023 issue, (Trip of a lifetime, page 46) involving taking a BSA M20 into the same area, what with the M20 being simple, rugged, tough and hardy, as after all 100,000-plus soldiers can’t be wrong, an early Square Four seems a somewhat curious choice. But it was what this correspondent – it is he who is replenishing the oil in the inset picture – had chosen to do.

The feature is attributed to ‘H Mazanec = Engelhardswalf’ with no further clues, really, as to the writer’s identity, nationality or otherwise. Though as the Ariel sports the registration number GX 4112, which is a south-east London sequence, one assumes he (and his travelling companion, no clues given about that person either) were Brits. The shorts, socks and pith helmet get-up in the small picture certainly point to that too!

Likewise, the florid descriptions also point to a well-heeled British chap. Though there’s some language and stereotyping which are very much of their time, there’s also some wonderfully poetic phraseology (“First impressions of Africa; Oh, Tangier, town of joy” just one example) and it all conjures up a heady mix. The travelling man and his companion spent the night ‘in a comfortable French hotel’ which is not surprising, being as at the time Morocco was known as French Morocco, a state which existed between 1912 and 1956, the year in which Moroccan independence, of a sort – the French still maintained a strong presence and influence – was declared.

Interestingly, written in 1936, the feature notes the diversity of people in Tangier, a port of course, so the majority were sailors, but Spanish sailors – in 1940, Franco’s Spanish troops were to occupy Tangier, expecting an Italian invasion that never came. Prior to that, Tangier wasn’t part of French Morocco either, being in the Tangier International Zone, which was governed by a complicated system, involving several European countries, but what happened was it became a liberal, cosmopolitan society, a whole range of races and religions, living in relative harmony.

Still, our Square Four traveller only stayed a short time, before heading into ‘French Morocco’ and riding into Fez, the Arab city of ancient fame. ‘I heartily recommend its bright, wonderful streets and teeming Arab life to anyone looking for local colour.’ From there, it was into Algeria – another French colony, until 1962 – before heading into the Sahara. ‘We left the town with a load of tinned stuff and lemons…’ being the noted preparation. As for the Ariel? In the mountains, ‘… the good Ariel, who now never complained of all her changes of fuel and climate, had a little climbing practice again.’

Across the Ouled Nail mountain range, there was a heavy storm, of hail followed by rain, which, in the end, necessitated in the Ariel being detached from its sidecar, so both could be carried separately across a now-impassable river, with water having rushed down the mountains. But once through, they made progress, though ‘the water courses were numerous and my passenger had to push to help us get up the banks, or we had to build tracks through sandy places and streams.’ But the Ariel kept on going.

Eventually, they made it to Biskra, in northeastern Algeria, before heading east toward Tunisia, then from there, into Libya. “Then we rode across the salty Libyan desert until finally, at Tripoli, on the Mediterranean coast, we sampled real beds again.” From Tripoli, the travellers and their trusty steed boarded a boat bound for Malta, then on to Syracuse in Sicily.

As for the Square Four. Scant details are given, in fact, none at all really, as to anything more than its dependability, while in one picture, the plugs are out and being cleaned. It is clearly an overhead camshaft version, so Edward Turner’s original incarnation launched for the 1931 season, originally at 498cc, before being joined for 1932 by a 601cc version, achieved by boring out from 51mm to 56mm, while keeping the same 61mm stroke. For 1937, the ohc ‘Squariel’ was dropped, replaced by an overhead valve version, of 995cc, with a sleeved down 599cc version also available. But it’s one of the ‘cammies’ hard at work in the deserts of Africa.