The Arbel (also called Loubières, Loubière, Symétric, Symétric-Paris, or Arbel-Symétric) was a fiber-glass bodied hybrid petrol-electric vehicle produced by the Compagnie Normande d'Etudes pour l'Application de Procédés Mécaniques made as individual models from 1951 to 1953 and again 1957 to 1959.
[3] The first Arbel was designed and made by Casimir (Casi) André Loubière, then a 43-year-old car salesman, and financed by his brother Maurice, the owner of an air-transport business, COSARA (Société Transatlantique Aérienne en Extrême Orient), in Indo-China.
[5] The car was redesigned as a roadster with a plastic body and re-shown during the Paris Grand Palais 40th Salon d'Automobile and Cycle Show on 22 October 1953.
[11] Called the Arbel-Symétric, alternative power plants were considered, the first was a static gas generator fueled by diesel oil and the second in 1958, possibly taking the idea from the Ford Nucleon, was to be powered by a "genestatom", a 40-KW nuclear thermal generator using radioactive cartridges made of nuclear waste.
The 1958 Geneva show also had the Studebaker-Packard Astral, another concept car with the idea of nuclear propulsion, on display.