AREXONS A story that has lasted for more than 80 years

Since the dawning of the car industry in 1900. The automobile had already been defined by some as an invention without a future.
At the start of the last century, this rather mysterious and elite invention was difficult to fathom and yet, over the following years, it was to revolutionize the life of millions of people.
It was 1925 when the Verri brothers, expert chemists, decided to take up the challenge that took them such a long way. However, it should not be forgotten that while, in Italy, only about 49,000 cars were produced in a year, in the United States, the figures were completely different: 20 million vehicles were already in circulation and production had reached 4 million vehicles a year.
America was the symbol of wealth and progress and, in Detroit, the first assembly chain created by ingenious Henry Ford, produced the famous Ford T cars non stop.

But here in Italy, it was difficult to imagine investing in a sector parallel to another that had not yet reached its boom.

It was intuition, rather than a forecast development of the car industry, that led to the Verri brothers setting up a company whose name was to become so closely bound to the car industry.

As in all important stories, the idea was conceived by chance, following a series of coincidences. At the time, one of Achille Verri’s best friends was a well-known industrialist. On his return from a trip to the United States, along with the experiences he had to tell to his friends, and the news and curiosities from the other side of the ocean, he actually brought back with him some cans of a strange dark dense and sticky liquid. “Over there, mechanics use it to maintain engine seals and it works really well” he told his friend.

Achille Verri was astounded, he immediately realized that in this can, which had been given to him by chance, there was a real fortune: this is the story behind the Pik seal mastic, the first product of the brand new “Italian chemical car product company” called Arexons. The initial marketing intuition of the newly founded company lies in its name.

The story tells that it was created one evening when the two Verri brothers were trying to decide on a company name around a blank sheet on which they had simply written an X. As though it were a game, they then wrote other letters around it, three before and three after the X, putting an S on the end to make it sound English, which was very fashionable at the time. This is how the perfect, intriguing brand name came about: very often reality exceeds fantasy.

The Arexons products met immediately with success. They were designed for car maintenance and became a must for car owners and mechanics. Many other products were soon placed alongside the seal mastic.

In the forties, the company took on industrial proportions and the name “Commerciale Prodotti Chimici” (Chemicals Trade Company); for the whole decade and during the Second World War, Arexons went through continuous company shake-ups.

Sales grew in any case as did the number of its employees. In 1950, after a capital increase, the company changed name again and became the “Società Italiana prodotti per Auto e Locomozione S.I.P.A.L. Arexons SpA”. It employed a large number of factory workers and also had 15 salesmen.

During the years of the economic boom, Arexons continued to grow as a result of the boom and the growth of the car industry.

FIAT was motorizing Italy, timeless myths such as the Vespa and the Topolino were designed and the economic boom brought a motorized vehicle into every home.

The Arexons products designed for car maintenance become extremely widely used: the range of Pik “Seal Mastics”, the Svitol unlocking fluid and Rolin Fluid for radiators, turned a small company into the leading company in the sector.

But the story of Arexons “symbol” products continued; 1978 saw the production of the rust converter Ferox, another brand that had a great impact on the company’s production and sales.

In Italy the company had developed a huge sales network and built up a strong trademark in a sector in which competition grew rapidly.

Many years had passed since the start of the adventure and the car had become a very common means of transport, spreading on a vast scale.

By the eighties, Arexons had become an established trademark identifying novel and avant-garde products. It was still a young company, constantly searching for new ideas. The initial spirit and desire to invest had always been a part of the DNA of the company’s staff.

In 1990, Arexons was purchased by Fiat Lubrificanti, a company that lasted until July ‘97, when Arexons was taken over by the financial company SBU (Swiss Bank Union), and then sold again and incorporated in the FINAL group.

But the roads of the ex Fiat Lubrificanti company and Arexons crossed again when FL Selenia purchased the latter at the end of 2005.

At the end of 2007, FL Selenia and, consequently, also Arexons, were sold by the American investment fund KKR to PETRONAS, an acronym for the Petroliam Nasional Berhad, that is, the Malaysian State gas and oil company.

More than 80 years have passed since the start of the Verri brothers’ adventure and some of the Arexons brand names have become actual product names, for example, Svitol, one of Arexons par excellence products.

The philosophy of constant innovation, investment, quality, attention to the consumer and search for new technologies has always been the basis of Arexons’s work and commitment.

Arexons: for over 80 years we have been taking care of your most precious belongings!