Last-minute Christmas shopping, the Nomad way
More fun than a flying reindeer, Ed Wiseman’s open-air off-roader is ideal for a festive spin
Grip the rearmost roof bar with your left hand and place your left foot in the base of the seat. Grip the light bar with your right hand and swing your right foot into the footwell. Make sure that the safety belts are well out of the way before lowering your derrière into the cold, hard, plastic tub seat, and try to ignore the quarter-inch of standing water collected therein. Wipe the condensation from the window, wipe the resultant water from your knees, and don your gloves. Only then may you attach the steering wheel.
The Ariel Nomad is, despite what you may be thinking, a brilliant car. Hand-built in a small workshop near Crewkerne, Somerset, this preposterous machine has near-mythical status among “car people” who are happy to overlook the very serious shortcomings of a car with no doors, walls or roof and focus on its positive attributes, which are many. I fall firmly into this category, which is why I’m sitting, grinning, lightly bruised and shivering, in a Nomad, ready to go Christmas shopping.
Even after the palaver described above, you’re never really in a Nomad. You occupy it as you would a park – you’re in it, but still outdoors. Wedged into your seat and strapped in with a four-point harness, you can reach your arms through the top and side of the exoskeleton, should you so wish. The minimalist interface consists of little more than a steering wheel, gearstick, handbrake (the silly kind) and pedals, plus toggle switches for the wipers, indicators and ignition. My upmarket model also has a winch and associated controls, plus a heated windscreen. There’s very little else.
Ariel has lent me a toasty heated outfit consisting of a fetching gilet and pair of gloves, which plug in to the Nomad’s electrical system. While their bulk makes me feel like the Michelin man, they are welcome while driving a fully open car in December. A tatty Barbour jacket, my old school scarf and a Father Christmas hat complete the “look”. I’m every inch the modern motorist.
There’s an uncommon purity to the way the Nomad sounds. I flick the ignition switch with my rapidly warming paws, drop the clutch with a pleasingly mechanical “gashunk”, and press the unmarked, rubberised starter button. The engine turns and fires, the misty air now thick with the sound of Honda. Mounted inches behind my head is the 2.4-litre straight-four from the previous-generation Civic Type R. The whole process is matter-of-fact and untheatrical, like starting a piece of farm machinery. It makes modern supercars seem rather pretentious.
Engaging first gear gives you options. You can pull away sedately, and use the versatile, eminently practical power train almost like that of a normal car. Or you can exit the car park in a cloud of noise, mist and tyre smoke, the bobble of your festive hat blowing in the slipstream of your jollity.
It’s impossible to be sad in an Ariel Nomad. In fact, it’s impossible to be anything other than delighted. Everything about this machine, from the way it looks, to the way it sounds, to the way it drives, is cheerful. Other drivers smile and laugh; I suspect that this is the reception Father Christmas himself would receive should he arrive by road.
The Nomad sings a far merrier tune than any carol singer. Induction noise, originating near my left ear, mingles with the percussive clonks and clinks of the drivetrain, brakes and suspension, as great arcs of grey-brown rainwater erupt from behind the tyres. I make my way into Essex, and I’m reminded that – in the very loosest sense of the phrase – I have a job to do.
Ingatestone is one of the pretty villages that lurk just outside the M25, close to London although you’d never know it. Its high street is lined with welcoming pubs and independent boutiques, bedecked in Christmas finery. My muddy, loud machine turns a couple of heads as I park, remove the steering wheel and clamber stiffly out, my right-hand side moist with motorway oomska.
Ingatestone’s Christmas market, with singers, art stalls and – most importantly – a German sausage vendor, is the antidote to the frenetic pace of Winter Wonderland and other large-scale events. My girlfriend, who drove here in her Vauxhall Corsa and is consequently far warmer and drier than I am, joins me to head to a small farmyard marked on Google Maps as Di’s Supplies.
Here we purchase a handsome, locally grown Christmas tree, which we attach to the Nomad’s roof. This somewhat alters the dynamic nature of the car, adding not insignificant weight and a greater susceptibility to crosswinds.
Then it’s on to the Hanningfield Reservoir Visitor Centre. In truth, the primary motivation for our visit is to use the loo, but, due in part to the gracious welcome, we end up staying for the best part of an hour. The café of this nature reserve, a 100-acre Site of Special Scientific Interest run by Essex Wildlife Trust and Essex and Suffolk Water, offers food and coffee as well as binoculars and wildlife-friendly apparatus for your garden.
The weather begins to turn and, back “inside” the wet Nomad, I’m struck by how much more of nature you experience in a car that has no bodywork. There’s a pine-scented freshness to the driving experience now that there’s a damp Christmas tree strapped to my roof. You could probably achieve a similar sensation more cheaply by taking a freezing shower with about 60 minicab air fresheners, but I’m still pleased to be essentially out in the open.
Christmas is a time of many small errands and I still have plenty to do before the day, including some lastminute gift-hunting, the local round of card deliveries and, of course, the long drive to my parental home. Each of these tiny tasks is an event in the Nomad, its preposterous appearance and tendencies making even a quick trip to the supermarket feel like a hilarious, uproarious adventure.
It’s as close to magic as I’ve ever come. I haven’t enjoyed Christmas this much for years.
I’m struck by how much more of nature you experience in a car that has no bodywork