Think about it: no-one else in Europe could have built a car like the Ariel Nomad and convinced the rest of us it was a good idea. This is very much a minority car, the kind of machine you’d never quite see yourself owning. Then again, 10 years ago I’d probably have joined you in saying the same about an Atom - and then I finished up owning one for four very happy years.
It was striking over Christmas, amid the steady flow of car-nuts’ electronic messages that is nowadays a strong theme of every holiday or weekend, how consistently the theme of the Nomad’s enormous desirability ran through every message or posting.
It extended from members of the Ariel faithful - those who really know what it’s like to have a car with no body and not much of a windscreen - to those who usually only drive family estates, and I believe there’s one overriding reason for that: so high is the credibility of the tiny Ariel company from Crewkerne that the new Nomad is presumed to be a product of quality and high capability. Which is a big start for any new car that’ll sell entirely on its high 'gotta have one' quotient.
For me - a former Atom owner - it’s the pictures of the car testing that create the real responance. To that superb steering and taut chassis I remember so well can now be added the delicious feeling of long-travel suspension (just soft enough, Ariel says) plus the feeling of effortless torque at low revs. Change the road surface and it adds up to a completely new kind of driving, allowing a keen driver to investigate the subtleties of car control on low-grip surfaces rather than on a conventional track.
When viewed independently, the staple components of the new Ariel Nomad are nothing new. Brought gloriously together, they amount to an entirely new kind of driving.
from Autocar RSS Feed http://ift.tt/1BGcNcf
via AGYA
