Ariel Motor Company Ltd is a British, low-volume performance

motor vehicle A motor vehicle, also known as motorized vehicle or automotive vehicle, is a self-propelled land vehicle, commonly wheeled, that does not operate on rails (such as trains or trams) and is used for the transportation of people or cargo. The ...

manufacturing company in

Crewkerne Crewkerne ( ) is a town and electoral ward in Somerset, England, southwest of Yeovil and east of Chard all in the South Somerset district. The civil parish of West Crewkerne includes the hamlets of Coombe, Woolminstone and Henley – and b ...

, in

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lor ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

History

Founded by Simon Saunders in 1991 as Solocrest Ltd., the name was changed in 1999 to Ariel Motor Company Ltd. The original Ariel Motors remains as the trading company of the Ariel Owners Motorcycle Club (AOMCC)

Ariel Motorcycles Ariel Motorcycles was a British maker of bicycles and then motorcycles in Bournbrook, Birmingham. It was an innovator in British motorcycling, part of the Ariel marque. The company was sold to BSA in 1951 but the brand survived until 1967. Inf ...

firm. Ariel Motor Company is one of the UK's smallest automotive companies, with just 30 employees, producing up to 100 cars per year.

Products

Atom

The company manufactures the

Ariel Atom The Ariel Atom is a road-legal high performance open-wheel car made by the British Ariel Motor Company based in Crewkerne, Somerset, England, and under license in North America by TMI Autotech, Inc. at Virginia International Raceway in Alton, ...

, an extremely light, high performance car, powered by a Honda Civic Type-R engine and gearbox. The Atom is the world's first road-going exoskeletal car; it has no bodywork or roof, and is built entirely around the tube chassis, making it weigh less than . This means that the Ariel Atom 3.5R

supercharged In an internal combustion engine, a supercharger compresses the intake gas, forcing more air into the engine in order to produce more power for a given displacement. The current categorisation is that a supercharger is a form of forced indu ...

model has a

power-to-weight ratio Power-to-weight ratio (PWR, also called specific power, or power-to-mass ratio) is a calculation commonly applied to engines and mobile power sources to enable the comparison of one unit or design to another. Power-to-weight ratio is a measuremen ...

of around per tonne. In July 2018, at the

Goodwood Festival of Speed The Goodwood Festival of Speed is an annual motorsports festival featuring modern and historic motor racing vehicles taking part in a hill climb and other events, held in the grounds of Goodwood House, West Sussex, England, in late June o ...

Ariel announced and started taking reservations for their new Ariel Atom 4. The new car is completely revised from the previous

, with all but a few parts having been changed. The new car is powered again by the engine used in the

Honda Civic Type R The is a series of high-performance hatchback/ sedan models based on the Civic, developed and produced by Honda since September 1997. The first Civic Type R was the third model to receive Honda's Type R badge (after the NSX and Integra). Typ ...

, but is now turbo charged as standard in the Atom 4. The new car also features a thicker frame, separate seats and a revised intake. The new car has been reviewed by Autocar and deliveries started at the start of June 2019.

Ace

In June 2014, the company announced the new

Ariel Ace The Ariel Ace is a 2014 sports motorcycle that is manufactured by the British Ariel Motor Company in Crewkerne, Somerset, England. It uses the V4 engine from the Honda VFR1200. It is the Ariel marque's first new motorcycle in more than 50 ...

motorcycle. Powered by a Honda 1237cc V4 engine and gearbox, the bike will be produced from 2015 in similar volume levels to the existing car-based products.

Nomad

In January 2015, Ariel introduced the Nomad, a road-legal buggy designed along the same principles as the Atom, at the Autosport International Show. The Nomad utilises a 2.4 litre Honda engine producing 235bhp.

HIPERCAR

In August 2017, Ariel announced the HIPERCAR (High Performance Carbon Reduction), an electric

sports car A sports car is a car designed with an emphasis on dynamic performance, such as handling, acceleration, top speed, the thrill of driving and racing capability. Sports cars originated in Europe in the early 1900s and are currently produced by ...

. The HIPERCAR uses Equipmake APM200 electric motors, supplied by a

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the Nor ...

-based

electric bus An electric bus is a bus that is propelled using electric motors as opposed to an internal combustion engine. Electric buses can store the needed electricity on-board, or be fed continuously from an external source. The majority of buses ...

manufacturing start-up.

References

External links

* {{Automotive industry Vehicle manufacturing companies established in 1991 Car brands Crewkerne Car manufacturers of the United Kingdom Companies based in Somerset Sports car manufacturers