Our Nomad, being Nomadic
ARIEL NOMAD ADVENTURE + HELLO AUDI SQ8, PEUGEOT 508 SW, NISSAN JUKE AND KIA NIRO + GOODBYE RENAULT SPORT MEGANE AND HONDA CR V HYBRID + LIVING WITH NINE MORE CARS
‘Yeah, erm, feeling rough; I won’t be in today…’
Summer’s gone, the forecast says tomorrow’s the last day of good weather for the year and you have a Nomad – time to pull a sickie. By Ben Miller Ariel Nomad Month 7
The story so far
Wild, Honda-engined on-/o road weapon is ours to enjoy and try to break for a few months. Truly, we are blessed Goes anywhere; fast; drifty; does anything… …except keep you dry, store much, or in any way drive itself
Logbook
Price £33,996 (£55,677 as tested) Performance 2354cc four-cylinder, 235bhp, 221lb ft, 3.4sec 0-60mph, 124mph
E ciency n/a mpg (o cial), 26.2mpg (tested) Energy cost
23.1p per mile Miles this month
338 Total miles 1561
The Nomad shudders as the weather hits it broadside, like a wooden lifeboat in a 100ft swell. A band of showers first thing, they said. No kidding. Climbing up into the Peak District before dawn, the chill of night still in the air, it is the sky that disappears first. Then the distant hills, the murky treeline and, soon enough, the car in front but for the ember glow of its rear lights – one by one the rain and the fast-rolling cloud take them all. The Nomad is more weatherproof than Ariel’s Atom sports car only in the same way that a small hole in a submarine is better than a big one. It may have a screen (heated, handily) and clear plastic panels mounted to the sides of the frame, but nothing is sealed and there are no doors and no roof (as standard, though you can spec a stretchy fabric one).
On the A515 heading north from Ashbourne, spray soon engulfs the car. Crosswinds gallop unchecked across the open landscape and – choked with rain – blow right through the Ariel. You can just about drive a Caterham in the rain roof-down and stay dry unless you stop. The open Nomad filters the weather less.
Regrets? Not yet. I knew last night that I wasn’t going to work today. I couldn’t: everything had fallen into place. The forecast (after 9am at least…) looked good. What’s more, time was running out. Ariel, quite understandably, wanted their car back. And I’d had the text – a reply from a friend who lives and works in the Peak District, leading gaggles of off-road motorcyclists, to say his diary was clear.
All set, then. The Ariel and I would tail Boyd and his Honda (appropriate, given the Civic engine in the back of the Nomad) across some of the UK’s most spectacular green lanes.
This morning I woke before my alarm, pulled on a bizarre post-apocalyptic fancy-dress outfit – thermals, sacrificial old trainers, trusty waxed-cotton ⊲
Belstaff, racing gloves – and as the dog watched, bemused, from the lounge window, dropped into the Ariel’s unyielding bucket seat. The drive up is weather-beaten at times but there’s a thrill to it nonetheless. Truth is there’s a thrill to almost everything about the Ariel: its analogue, electronics-free controls; the theatre of it (Race harnesses! Brake-bias adjuster! On-demand oversteer!); the enthralling, immersive driving experience. Add to that the naïve joy of bunking off work and you’ve a heady cocktail.
Just south of Buxton I hang a left for Longnor, and worry briefly that a car this superb on tarmac must be fairly hopeless off-road, surely. The cloud and rain are gone and the sun’s finally climbed above the ridgeline but the roads are wet; the tarmac still cold. In Hurdlow the Royal Oak pub stands sentinel over a wicked uphill left-hander. In second gear the Ariel slurs sideways and spins its rear wheels up over the crest, the grunty Honda motor way too much for the knobbly Yokohama rubber in these conditions. Now I’m awake.
Half a mile later, just outside Crowdecote, the tarmac plunges downhill via a couple of proper, Alps-worthy hairpins, the view out over the armco worthy of a couple of hours with easel and oils.
Months ago, when I first picked the car up and its sensations were alien, the Ariel was daunting in such conditions. Without ABS or stability control I feared death and destruction at every turn. But so transparently does the Nomad telegraph its behaviour, and so direct and well resolved are its controls that nothing could be further from the truth. Within a few days you’re unthinkingly nuzzling up to the point of lock-up on the brakes, and nudging up to – and just over – the limits of both axles with every corner.
Sunshine blazes over a landscape glittering with dew. The engine, warm and working hard now, fills my world. Road streams beneath the wheels as the morning air stings my cheeks. The slipstream tugs happy tears from my eyes. My brain’s 150 per cent more awake than it’s ever been at work. And it’s not even breakfast time.
At Boyd’s we do little more than chuck some tools in the Ariel, pack a tyre pump and spend a few moments contemplating what is by some margin the weirdest vehicle he’s ever led into the hills. Green-laning in the UK isn’t as straightforward as it is in less populous nations (almost everywhere else, then). Each tribe – ramblers, mountain bikers, trail riders, 4x4 drivers, land owners – is quick to hate the others, causing tensions and pressure to close some routes to powered vehicles. That being the case, and with Boyd understandably keen to keep the trails open, he’s a little worried about heading into the hills in a car that looks like a US Army recon buggy. I see his point, so we make two rules: stick to the rockier, more durable trails; don’t be a dick.
There’s no chance to get apprehensive, either about getting stuck (unlike most off-roaders the Nomad is two-wheel drive and has no low-range transmission) or getting soaked and frozen – we’re straight into it. After a water splash (gentle by the standards of what’s to come…) we rip uphill before turning off the single-track tarmac and onto a deeply rutted mud track that worms its way back down between overgrown verges of enormous ferns. Gently, I feel the Nomad’s armoured underbelly begin to surf the track’s raised ⊲
We make two rules: stick to the more durable trails; don’t be a dick
middle, the steering wheel gently tugging in my hands as the front wheels follow the ruts. I keep waiting for the Ariel to grind to a halt, stricken, but it refuses, instead driving on with the engine on tickover and the Yokohama tyres finding grip where your eyes tell your brain they surely cannot.
Back down on the valley floor we hit a faster, hard-packed trail, bounding over crests and dropping into flooded dips at a decent lick in third gear, the more open country affording us the luxury of some speed. The Ariel blasts through standing water, plumes of the stuff fizzing off its hot exhaust. In the cockpit, my face and right shoulder soaked and plastered in mud, I can’t stop laughing. Boyd, who long since disappeared up ahead on a mix of talent, local knowledge, power and long-travel suspension, doubles back to find the Nomad powering from a storm-swollen river, murky water sloshing in the footwell and pouring from the car. ‘Having fun?’ I’m laughing too hard to answer.
The miles pass in a blur of trails, tracks, astonishing views and short bursts of road work, on which the Nomad now looks even more brutally zombie-ready, its tubular frame and rugged bodywork (its spun from the same indestructible stuff used to make trac cones) plastered in prime Peak District muck. The ease with which the Ariel tackles both surfaces is deeply impressive – even Boyd, who cares little for cars, can’t help but begrudgingly admire the thing.
We don’t see another vehicle all day but most green-laning fourwheelers are Land Rover-based; heavy, slow and about as much fun on the road as trying to play five-a-side football in hiking boots. The Ariel’s is a gentler, lighter approach; easy drive, a healthy power-to-weight ratio, exceptional suspension (our car wears Ariel’s most off-road-centric shocks, a £3k option from springy-bits specialists Fox) and low weight are as valid on the road as they are off it. We swerve lunch, determined instead to milk this day of days for all it can give. Two sections stand clear as ‘pinch me’ moments of man/machine bliss: a rapid stretch of forest track covered in what looks and feels like graded aggregate, and offers so much grip the Ariel asks that I tweak the fly-off handbrake to help rotate the car; and a viciously steep climb strewn with boulders the size of wild boars.
That the Nomad laps up the quick stuff goes without saying, and our ‘don’t be a dick’ game plan pays dividends – the mountain bikers and dog walkers we meet
The danmdpers shrug o the hits, the rear Yokos refuse to give up and the winch stays in place, unused
along the way do more smiling than swearing, and launch into all the questions Ariel’s unique creation always prompts in newcomers.
I feared the steep climb might be too much, so slow and technical is the terrain and so clearly hostile to four-wheelers the lumpen, rain-soaked topography.
But no. The Fox dampers shrug off the hits, the rear Yokos refuse to give up their purchase and the winch stays in place, unused. Even the clutch, which gets a workout as I endlessly swap between the first three gears and modulate the power at walking pace via the left pedal, refuses to wilt. (Our car has the uprated clutch option.)
With one last giant body of water forded (keep moving, mindful to ensure the nose – which contains the battery and fuse box – stays clear of the water), we emerge onto a ridge. The views stretch for miles. To the north-west we can see the high-rise buildings and chimneys of Manchester through a gap in the hills. We park up and take a moment resting on England’s most scenic drystone wall. My phone pings a reminder for a meeting starting in 15 minutes. Not today, sorry – too busy feeling on top of the world.