PURE POINTLESS PLEASURE
The Ariel Atom is one of the finest motoring creations, says Neil Lyndon
Life, as a whole, ought to be more like an Ariel Atom. Its appearance barely changes from year to year, from decade to decade – yet it keeps getting better and better underneath. Meanwhile, the Atom remains one of the purest conceptions and finest creations human hands have ever wrought in the name of pointless pleasure. If you didn’t know, you would never guess that the latest version differs from the previous one by 90 per cent (chiefly, apparently, in things like suspension components, engine mountings and such obscure details). It still looks like nothing on earth. Its exoskeletal tubular chassis and its minimal body panels still give it the appearance of an extraterrestrial invader. Seeing the new one for the first time last week at the Bedford Autodrome (where it had been brought specially for me to drive alone on the track), I could hardly spot any difference between this latest, 310bhp supercharged Atom and the one I first set eyes upon at this little company’s Crewkerne works and drove around Somerset lanes in the mid Nineties. At that time, Simon Saunders – still the guiding spirit behind Ariel – had only recently put his money and his managerial energy behind the fantasy that had been created by Nik Smart, a student at Coventry University. Saunders himself donned a leather flying helmet and came with me in the open two-seat cockpit of that original car as I piloted it on what was then the nearest experience I had ever known in a road-going car to a single-seat race car or a high-performance motorbike. Like everybody else who drove those first Atoms, I was blown away by acceleration that would pin your ears flat to your head if you weren’t wearing a helmet and by steering and braking almost as uncorrupted by mechanical processes as thought itself. Then costing around £20,000, the Atom could be kept in a garage at home and driven on public roads to a circuit where its lucky owner would have the pleasure of putting Porsches, Aston Martins and Ferraris in their lowly place on owners’ track days. Prices still start at £29,870 (though the bespoke supercharged version I drove would set you back at least £37,500) and for £70,000-odd you can have a full programme of racing in an Atom prepared by the factory, delivered for your pleasure to all of that year’s Atom one-class races at different circuits and handed over to you as your own personal property to keep forever at the end of the season. What price matchless delight? Chief instructor Rob Jenkinson kindly buckled me into the harness in one of the 10 245bhp Atoms that PalmerSport keep at the Bedford Autodrome and, on intercom from the passenger seat, gave me a few laps tuition in the correct lines and braking points for the circuit. Then Tom Siebert from Ariel handed over the supercharged version with its Honda Type R two-litre engine and I was off screaming around the track. And when I say “screaming”, I should add that was, in fact, your own correspondent you probably heard – not the shrieking supercharger. Without ABS or traction aids, this Atom is as sensitive as a neurotic racehorse and power has to be fed in delicately coming out of a corner if you are not to spin like the blades in a food-processor. When the throttle pedal does finally meet the metal plates that pass for a floor, however, the lunacy of bedlam breaks out in full voice. It is simultaneously exhilarating and eviscerating. I had to come in after a few laps because nameless dread had me in its grip. “If I go on much longer, I shall be way past my limits,” I explained to Rob. “That’s precisely what this place and this car exist to discover,” he answered with a wicked grin. Price (as tested): £39,950 Power: 310bhp 0-62mph: 2.72sec Top speed: 155mph Average fuel consumption: about 25mpg CO2 emissions: Euro IV compliant Insurance: by special arrangement Star rating: KTM X-Bow Street “R” Price: £50,864 For: as wonderful as any motorbike Against: looks like a motorbike Rating: Caterham Seven 2.0 Duratec R500 Price: £41,000 For: more a force of nature than a car Against: iron maiden discomforts Rating: