"I push the throttle and I am simply somewhere else"
"It's bananas"
"The Atom-ic Bomb"
"There's no car on the planet that is quite like the Atom"
"Transcendance in Bedfordshire"
"The Key element is Britishness"
These are some of the remarkable comments made by some reputed Auto Journalists from around the world on the Ariel Atom.
The Ariel Atom is a road legal high performance sports car made by the Ariel Motor Company based in Crewkerne, Somerset, England and under licence in North America by TMI Autotech Inc. at Virginia International Raceway in Alton, Virginia.
The Ariel Atom is unusual in that it is exoskeleton - the chassis is prominently visible from the outside - and therefore lacks a roof, windows and other features normally found on road cars although a small windscreen is available as an optional extra. The chassis design leads to a relatively high drag coefficient of 0.40 in comparison to more aerodynamic road cars.
The Atom is powered by a all alloy Honda 2.0 litre i-VTEC, makers of the best engines in the world. And here in the Atom 3 the latest all alloy Honda. The car is not equipped with turbos, no race gearboxes and no motorcycles parts. The engine comes with low speed tractability with race engine dynamics which can be normally aspirated or supercharged. The Atom can accelerate from 0 to 60 mph (97 km/h) at 2.89 seconds, making it the world's third fastest accelerating production car in 2005 available, after the $1.3 million, 1,001 PS (987 bhp) Bugatti Veyron at 2.46 seconds, and the Ultima GTR at 2.6 seconds.
The Ariel Atom 3.5R is the upgraded version of the Ariel Atom producing 350 hp from a 1,998 cc supercharged Honda engine which propels the 550 kg car to 60 mph in just 2.6 seconds and to a top speed of 155 mph (250 km/h).
The Ariel Atom is one of the most successful small scale production Super Cars of all time.