And the figures are only half as astonishing as the finished result.
The Atom 4 weighs 595kg, even with the engine from the Honda Civic Type R, turbos, intercoolers and all. Now in its fourth iteration, the Atom’s been tweaked, honed and then entirely overhauled, resulting in a car that’s more usable on the road than ever before.īut if you think it’s bloated like a middle-aged rocker, think again. One thing that hasn’t slowed down is Ariel – nor indeed its Atom. Ah well the years speed up as we slow down, and all that. To us, it felt like only yesterday that we saw some pleasantly sculpted scaffolding reaching silly speeds and unpleasantly rearranging a Top Gear host’s facial features. It might be hard to believe, but the Ariel Atom has been around for more than two decades.
Then you’re up to about the same power per litre as a Lamborghini Aventador SV for the merest fraction of the cost.įailing that, there’s always a long-distance call to Flyin’ Miata. Still no? Well, place a quick call to BBR for 220 naturally aspirated horsepower and zero weight penalty.
LIGHTWRIGHT CHANGE LAYOUT MANUAL
So what about a naturally aspirated engine that revs to 7,500rpm, feeding more than 180bhp through a sweet six-speed manual to the rear wheels? And what if it only had to motivate 1,100kg or so. After all, it’s not numbers that lie, just the people who manipulate them. the MX-5 is a performance car?” And that could be something of a difficult argument, when you have all of two litres of naturally aspirated engine and a power output well south of 200bhp to make your case.īut look at those numbers again from a different perspective. With that said, we bet at least a few of you are still asking, “Seriously. After the welterweight original, the two subsequent generations got something of a middle-aged bloat, regardless of the best intentions of its engineers.īut the fourth-generation MX-5 reverses the trend, offering what has to be the most accessible lightweight sports car on sale. Even here, the Miata is always the answer? Well, maybe – it really comes down to your definition of ‘performance car’, although the new MX-5 has more of a claim than almost any other.
well, a) you might be Gordon Murray, and b) there’s always the A110. And, crucially, people as large as we are can fit, which is something of a boon over, say, the Caterham. It’s lighter again, it reappraises just how much in the way of toys and tools is necessary to enjoy the drive, and it arrives at a car that’s 200kg lighter than the Alpine and about as powerful. And also note that the Elise is the A110 taken that one step further. If the lightness of the Alpine A110 piques your interest, if its focus on sensation over superlative power is a philosophy you can get behind. The Elise might miss out on the Exige’s ferociousness (and furious engine note), but it’s lighter, cheaper and still imbued with just as much bulldog-versus-bear attitude as the Exige it spawned more than a decade ago. Funny how a company that nearly exclusively builds lightweight sports cars, whose founder was nearly pathologically obsessed with shaving weight from cars, and whose name is basically a byword for ‘This Car Won’t Weigh Much’ should have multiple entries on a list like this.
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