3/20/2023 0 Comments Ariel atom for sale![]() ![]() ![]() The engine fires into noisy life, first gear arrives with a clunk, and then-after balancing the abruptly biting clutch on the edge of an embarrassing stall-I head out onto the Queen’s highway.Īgainst expectations, the 3.5R isn’t instantly terrifying. This is necessary as the sequential gearbox accepts only clutchless full-throttle “flat” changes when being used hard. The only real surprise is the presence of a clutch pedal in addition to the metal paddles that sit behind the steering wheel. There are six-point harnesses and a minimum of distractions, with instrumentation limited to a multifunction display screen behind the steering wheel surrounded by a modest selection of switches and buttons. With no doors or roof, you just climb over the birdcage tub, stand on the plastic driver’s seat, and then slide down behind the steering wheel. The Atom’s lack of bodywork liberates you from the usual contortions necessary to gain egress to a track special. Ariel claims that, on tight and/or twisty racetracks, this is the fastest street-legal Atom so far.Ī preliminary inspection of the car I’ll be driving also shows it’s sitting on track-biased Kumho Ecsta V700 tires, with the sort of minimal groove pattern that makes it look as if whoever was cutting them left the job half finished. It weighs just 1210 pounds dry, and even with the extra mass of a driver and half a tank of fuel onboard, it still has only about 4 pounds for every horsepower. It has 125 fewer horsepower than a road-tuned limited-edition Atom V-8, and 15 fewer horsepower than the recently announced U.S.-market turbo Atom 3S, but extreme weight saving, even by Ariel’s less-than-luxurious standards, means it’s lighter and more agile. In the Atom pantheon, the 3.5R sits very nearly at the top. This drives the rear wheels via-in the case of the car we’re testing-an optional six-speed Sadev sequential transmission. Power comes from a supercharged Honda 2.0-liter four-cylinder, the biggest point of difference from the Ariel we can get in the U.S., which has a 2.4-liter engine with an optional turbocharger. Even by the mad standards of Atom power-to-weight ratios, the 3.5R stands out as something special. And-as it tends to in wintertime around these parts-it’s raining. I have the narrow, twisty roads that surround Ariel’s factory in Somerset, England. Given the free choice of locations, where would you drive a 350-hp Ariel Atom? A flowing Alpine pass in the summer sunshine? Or a nice, quiet racetrack surrounded by deep run-off areas? Maybe you’d just nominate a nice wide runway to safely explore the performance of a car with a power-to-weight ratio not far removed from that of an early Can-Am racer.
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