Ariel Atom 3S Review | The Most Unreasonable Car Ever Built

This is the Ariel Atom 3s, and it is perhaps one of the most unreasonable cars ever built. I'm not saying that because it's outlandish, unpractical or barely street legal. It's all of those things and more. But there's something about this car that makes me gravitate towards it. Perhaps it's simply just the idea. And of course I'll have to explain myself eventually. But for now, I want to see what it's like behind the wheel. The first thing you'll notice when you start moving about is that the clutch is rather heavy. Not extraordinarily so, but enough to make your calves tingle the day after. And that the moment you hit any sort of imperfection on the road, you'll feel like you're being quartered by horses. The suspension itself is highly adjustable, but in no universe could I see you using this as a daily driver, because honestly, it'll make a Lotus Exige feel like a Mercedes Benz. But just look at the thing. What else did you expect? It's basically a race car with license plates. So, yes, it looks fast, but it also has the specs to back it up. Powered by A turbocharged Honda 2.4, it makes 365 brake horsepower and 310 pounds of torque. A modest number that's bested even by a Kia Stinger GT. But at £1,450, it's almost a third of the weight. The manufacturer claims to be able to hit 60 in under 3 seconds, 106.7 and cross the quarter mile in high tens. Basically all your supercar level feats. But here's the kicker. It costs a fraction of the price of your typical Italian stallion. New, you're looking at around 100 based on options. But since they've moved on to the Atom 4, you can find these used in the 70 to 80 grand range, if you can find them at all. However, this car is so beyond straight line stuff, it's not even a conversation. Everything about it is manual, including the brakes, which don't even have abs. The way the steering feels and the connection to the pavement is simply unrivaled. Everything about it begs you to take it around the track. Even these windy back roads aren't enough to satiate his hunger. The only reason I take this thing out in public is so that I can drown myself in the most intoxicating exhaust. Note this side of a V12. As you can imagine, getting in or out of this thing is an ordeal. Not because of the five point harness or body hugging race seats. But because it doesn't have any doors, you have to physically hoist yourself up and climb over the frame to get out. So for better or worse, it adds to the whole race car experience. And with enough practice, you'll look quasi badass. Things aren't much better on the inside. The seats are fixed and if you want to adjust them, be prepared to spend at least 30 minutes unbolting them from the frame rail. Since you have no way to secure your personals, they didn't bother with any kind of cabin storage, just a compartment in the frunk big enough for a sandwich and and your registration. The steering wheel is tiny, wrapped in alcantara and is simply amazing. It only comes in a six speed manual, which is also one of the best gearboxes I've ever touched. And if your engine catches fire, just pull on this little red thing. Did I mention it has headlights? The giant spoiler in the back is adjustable, as is the suspension and brake distribution. And since it runs race pads, street driving produces a lot of squealing, which is really unpleasant. As cool as it looks, it doesn't have as much road presence as you'd expect. I do like that it comes with Toyo R888R's from the factory. 205 up front and 245 in the rear. It's probably one of my favorite dual duty street to track tires. Speaking of track duty, I think it's time we do some performance tests. And you know what that means. Let's start with the straight line stuff. And now it's time to take some corners. Sa. Sam.

The Ariel Atom definitely lives up to its reputation. Being so light and nimble, it's not the easiest thing to drive at high speeds. In fact, it's really rather twitchy. Once you get above 100 miles per hour, things start to get hairy and you're really more at the whim of wind resistance than anything else. And you can see that during the straight line runs when the car sort of drifted over from one side of the Runway to the other. Of course it didn't help that we had almost 20 mile per hour crosswinds that day. And that also deterred us from getting the full half mile time due to safety. But let's take a look at what we did get. We'll start with our in house 4100 which the atom did 5.02 seconds. And that's smack dab in the middle of supercar territory. Not bad for a car with rear wheel drive and no launch control. I did hope for it to be faster, but it does take almost three shifts to get to 100 in this thing. Next up is the 61 30, which to most represents the gold standard for roll racing and straight line power. Putting down a time of 9.18 is a little under my expectations for a car with a power to weight of a Bugatti Meyron. And I'm sure it falls short of yours as well. With a little more seat time I'm confident that high eight seconds is possible, but the car really lacks high end.

Due to short gearing and aerodynamics.

Okay, lastly, the handling course. This is the first car we've timed here and the course is still in beta, but we'll publish something just in.

Case we stick with this layout.

The Atom went through the mile long course with 11 corners in one minute and eight seconds. Nothing to compare to yet, but it looked pretty quick to me. Could probably get it down to maybe.

A minute if it wasn't for degrees out and if we pushed it harder.

But keep in mind that this isn't a prep drag strip or professional race track, so the conditions aren't exactly the most ideal, but they do set reasonable expectations for the car in the real world. Another fun fact is that during our testing we found that the max spin on the dial turns out to be the least amount of traction intervention, whereas.

The minimum spin is the most.

Seems pretty self explanatory when you look at the grammar, but the orientation of the traction dial makes it just a bit confusing. The traction control system is pretty effective overall though. Even with it completely off, the car.

Doesn'T feel too dangerous or like it wants to murder you until you go beyond 8/10 of the limit, which honestly.

Is very difficult not to do because.

It'S an aerial Atom.

Anyway, I think it's about time I head out and put some more miles on this thing and hopefully give you guys my final thoughts.

So driving the Aero Atom is kind of like riding an adolescent flight fire breathing dragon. It sounds ferocious all the time, even in traffic. It has all the potential to either kill you or make you look like a hero. But it's not yet a matured package. It has a long way to go before it becomes a true track weapon because in a lot of ways it drives more like a go kart. Don't get me wrong, the experience is awesome. You feel like a race car driver, but it simply doesn't inspire confidence at the limit. Perhaps the settings weren't dialed in and we just Needed more heat in the tires or maybe we should have left the traction off. But being able to see what the suspension is doing all the time is quite fascinating. And to be frank, unless you truly know what you're doing, you really just showboating into the sunset. But I'm not gonna pretend like I know what I'm doing either, or that I can drive this car to the limit, because it takes a very special type of person to do that. Someone whose balls are made of things much harder than steel. It's a lot of car, and right now it's really just a novelty. Much like anything else that requires hard work. We often like the idea more than the execution. But that's not to say that it's not rewarding. It's an absolute blast to drive. I don't even mind not having creature comforts like radio, AC or doors manual. Everything is fine by me too. But it's the textbook definition of a one trick pony. Driving this on the street is pure torture. Not just for you, but for the Atom as well. It only makes sense if this is your 10th car and you're a track rat. Because at the end of the day, it's unreasonably fast, unreasonably fun, unreasonably raw, but at the same time, it's also unreasonably silly. I've always dreamed of owning an Ariel Atom, but after living with it for a week, I realized that this is not for me. Why don't you tell the viewers what.

You'Re doing right now?

Well, I am rigging the rearward rolling shot, but in a moment we're going to be doing what we haven't done before, which is used our 360 camera from.

It's the 360.

It's the new 1x2. And what we're doing is we're kind of arming it out from the car here.

Actually, I'm gonna.

I'm gonna re poet a little bit further down, kind of get like a unique angle of the Atom as we roll down the street.

This will give me the flexibility to.

Kind of, you know, pan and, you know, tilt however I see fit. Because, you know, because it's a360 camera, I can pretty much post edit the shot. But basically I'm going to try to get a high angle kind of shot, the typical where, you know, I'm driving, but the selfie stick is invisible, so it'll just look like it's floating right on top of me, which is pretty cool.

Go. Rolling. The 1x2 all right, so now we're.

Gonna try something a little bit more.

I guess, down my alley.

And what we're doing is we're mounting.

The 360, the 1x360, on the back.

Of the spoiler here, right underneath.

So when I extend it out, it'll.

Become invisible and it'll look like a.

Third person view of the car. Almost like fours are driving through the street. I've seen it done before and I wanted to try it for myself.

So let's give it a shot. I hope you guys enjoyed this video as much as I did making it. If so, it'd be awesome if you can hit that, like, button or maybe even visit my merch store. I can't cover everything I want to in the short amount of time that I have, so if I missed something, let me know in the comments below. And if this is your first time here, don't forget to check out some of my other stuff. I produce all sorts of cinematic car content, so if you like what you see, smash that subscribe button for new episodes whenever they come out. Thanks for watching.