![]() A 2.3-second time to accelerate from 0 to 60 mph tells no lies. Responses of the powertrain and drivetrain both are that brain-synapse quick. From here, the sound of the laterally rear-mounted, compact V-8 through the race-ready, ceramic-coated exhaust gives us the feeling that one of the engine mounting points must be the base of our spine. Yee-haw!Ī new touch is the five-point seatbelts (suitably logo-ed, of course) which kept us socked into the fiberglass two-seat molded form. And in the dry, you can switch off traction control altogether. The road tires-Toyo Proxes R888 205/50 ZR15 (86W) front, and 245/45 ZR16 (94W) rear-stuck close plenty well all day, with very limited traction control intervention happening. No telling what would have happened with the 493-horsepower/284-pound-feet/200-mph Race version of the Atom V8. We counter-steered quickly and stayed light on the throttle, and everything righted itself immediately. There was only one moment in particular coming onto the circuit’s main straight where we opened the throttle in third gear a little too soon over the sweaty pavement and occasional chestnut purée, and oversteer ensued. Originally, the plan was to load the engine bay with an even more compact 2.4-liter super- charged RST-V-8 from RS Performance, but the Ariel technicians tell us that you basically had to start out-especially on the street-in second gear to avoid spinouts and/or burnouts at every turn. And any Caterham, apart from the two-seat Levante with a 500-plus-horsepower Russell Savory Performance RST-V8 that gets supercharged, is going to have a heck of a time keeping within eyeshot. But the Lotus really can’t even come close to the naturally aspirated, 3.0-liter, 75-degree H1 V-8 engine (supplied by Hartley Enterprises in southeastern Wisconsin), once all is said and done. The closest we can come to this big bad go-kart sensation is the Lotus 2-Eleven that also offers a road tune. The steering rack-which can be easily mounted on the left or the right since the main shaft is in plain sight and attaches to the axle at the direct center-provides a lock-to-lock of just 1.7 turns. The reflexes of the Atom V8 are incomparable to anything else allowed on the road. The shifts themselves happen faster and smoother than ticks of a stopwatch-40-millisecond upshifts and 50-millisecond downshifts. Fastest speed on this day was 145 miles per hour along the Chobham circuit’s longest straight (of the 170 mph allowed in this, the Road setup for the car) and that just barely into fifth gear of the six-speed, paddle-shifted Sadev sequential competition gearbox. But the latter two have roofs and body panels and a whole assortment of other day-to-day doo-dads.Ī few laps in, the exposure to the elements becomes purely exhilarating as we search eagerly for the five-figure redline. The Atom V8 has a power-per-ton ratio close to that of the 765-horsepower per ton of today’s GP2 series single-seat racers, greater than that of a Ferrari Enzo, and even beyond that of the 1001-horsepower Bugatti Veyron. You simply know it’s going to take a few laps to get into the rhythm of this parallel universe. With a gross curb weight of just 1433 pounds with all fluids flowing and one of us aboard, the significance of 469 horsepower on tap at the 10,500-rpm redline begins to clarify. That said, even in the wet the Atom V8 is a monstrous joy at the old game of point-and-go. And in a few dry patches, the featherweight absolutely devoured the tarmac of the 2.2-mile circuit at Chobham, southwest of London, striving always to show us what it is capable of. Our day with the effervescent mega-Atom was a grey one, but nothing could dull our spirits in this sensational land dart. And then there’s the soon-to-drop 469-horse-power Ariel Atom V8, which seemingly defies comparisons-and which we just had for a day all to ourselves at the track over in that country that has a queen and uses some bastardized form of the American language. We get so accustomed to being shielded from the elements when we test any extreme high-performance car that driving something like the 296-horsepower Ariel Atom Gen-3 is akin to being strapped into an X-Games rollercoaster for an hour.
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