- Founded
- 1903 – 1938
- Founder
- Charles Petiet
- Headquarters
- Courbevoie, France
Newly qualified engineer Baron Charles Petiet founded Société des Automobiles Ariès at Villeneuve-la-Garenne in 1903, initially using nearby Aster engines and emphasizing robustness. Ariès rapidly diversified from voiturettes to 12-litre luxury cars, buses and trucks, developed its own narrow-angle V4 and pioneering French V6, and built more than 3,000 R6/R66 trucks around the First World War. Postwar CC/S light cars and 3-litre Grand Sports brought endurance-racing success, including major 1927 victories, although a leading GP2 retired late at Le Mans. Petiet resisted merger as scale and the Depression eroded viability; the advanced Super 10-50 could not reverse the decline, and production ended in 1938 after roughly 20,000 chassis.
Text adapted from “Ariès” on Wikipedia ↗ · CC BY-SA 4.0 ↗