Just out of the blue, Ariel Motors, the creator of the wonderfully insane Ariel Atom sports car, unveiled a new product and it’s an off-roader. The ‘mucky brother’ of the Atom is called Ariel Nomad and it’s a lightweight buggy sort of vehicle designed for fun in the mud.
Despite what the rugged looks of the Ariel Nomad, which like its brother features a naked ladder chassis, may suggest, it is not a full-on Dakar stormer. The Nomad is a 200 horsepower, two-wheel-drive car designed mainly to fast off the road rather than crawl over rocks and stuff. That said, the Nomad weighs only 700 kg and that gives it not just astounding power-to-weight ratio, but also superb agility.
The off-road goodies thrown into the mix to make the Ariel Atom include long-travel suspension, chunky gumball 235/70 tires on 15-inch wheels, and a mechanical limited-slip differential. The gearbox is Honda’s standard 6-speed manual which goes well with the Civic engine used in this model.
Unlike its track-racer brother, Ariel Nomad is not going to be that expensive. When it’s ready to hit the market a few months after its debut at the Autosport show in Birmingham in January, the Nomad will cost around 30,000 GBP, which isn’t that bad by Atom standard. That said, if you decide to spec it up with fancy electronic systems, you could end up paying a lot more than that.
Via Autocar
