Pinball wizard
£77,400
FOR A mad, frantic, incessant, buzzing hornet of a car AGAINST Standard Nomad’s playfulness has been diminished
Here’s an Ariel Nomad wearing an R, which you’ll have already correctly assumed means it’s a faster one. The standard one, with 235bhp, is capable of 0–60mph in 3.4secs, this one… accelerates like a ball bearing in a pinball machine.
Ariel already offers a supercharger kit for the standard Nomad, taking the 2.4-litre up to 290bhp, but if you want a full house track toy... well, personally, I’d say just turn up with off-road tyres and long travel Fox suspension and have at it. But Ariel thinks different.
Remember the Atom 3.5R? Pretty much the maddest of them all, powered by a supercharged 2.0-litre with 335bhp and Sadev sequential gearbox. Well, that’s the powertrain Ariel has now shoved in here.
Ariel is pitching it as something along the lines of a tarmac rally car. That’s a pretty accurate description, since Ariel seems to have fitted it with six identical gears. They all basically do the same thing: pin you in the seat while the engine screams into your lughole. They’re so closely stacked that you romp through each one in about two seconds, and seeing as upshifts take 40 milliseconds, there’s no pause for breath between lunges. It’s geared to do 121mph flat out, and pulls 4,500rpm at 70mph. If you want, Ariel can put in a longer fourth, fifth and sixth. You want.
The chassis can handle the power. Firstly, because it’s wearing a sticky set of Yokohama Advan A052s, and secondly, because it’s more stiffly set up, this one wearing a smart set of Öhlins dampers (Bilsteins are standard). It’s fundamentally different to a regular Nomad, much more focused on speed, more snappy and immediate, and terrifically fast, grippy and nimble around corners.
But weighing 150kg or so more than the old Atom 3.5R, and having a windscreen, means it’s not as ridiculously visceral as that, while anyone who’s driven the new Atom 4 is going to find the Nomad R slightly unsophisticated. The damping doesn’t feel completely nailed down, and if you drive hard your forearms get a workout from the kickback and fidget of the front wheels. It’s hard work and you’re constantly occupied managing suspension or steering or engine or gearbox – often all at the same time. It’s sure not dull and the 50ms downshifts under heavy braking are so perfect, they’re addictive.
Ariel is only making five, which helps justify the huge £77,400 asking price. But, for me, the R has strayed away from the essence of what makes the Nomad so much fun: catastrophic body roll, soft springs and a deliriously daft attitude. You may disagree and want a track car with a built-in roll cage. In which case, step forward.