The Ariel Atom has been the epitome of a stripped-down, budget performance track car. But with the X-Bow breathing down its neck, the guys from Ariel suddenly drops this bomb - they’re giving the car 200 more horses that would probably disintegrate Jeremy Clarkson’s face. The new Atom will be dubbed as the Ariel Atom 500.

The current Atom sports a 2.0L Honda Type R supercharged 300 hp engine that propels the lightweight car from naught to sixty in just three seconds. Imaging what an RS Performance 2.4-liter V8 dishing out the power of 500 horses do to the Ariel’s 1000-lb frame. Just imagining this scares me.

Ariel Director Simon Saunders has this to say:

‘This is an interesting project for us and an experimental departure from what we normally produce. For a few customers the Atom 500 will be the ultimate expression of lightweight performance and represents the outer limits of what is achievable in a road registered car. We also use this sort of project to explore the possibilities of how we can improve our standard cars. The Honda engined production cars already combine all the elements that we want in an Atom and by pushing the envelope to these sorts of extremes we can further improve the breed’.

Interesting? An “interesting project?” Good God, this is not interesting. This is insane. And I like it.

Source: Motive

The first time I saw the Ariel Atom was watching Clarkson on Top Gear driving it around the track, efficiently warping his face to oblivion. And I agreed with him that the Atom is indeed a piece of engineering. A car built for the track that would give any speed junkie the ride of his life.

So far, the Atom has had two incarnations in two generations and Ariel announced that the third generation Atom, dubbed as the Ariel Atom 3 will be released. While the Atom stays true to the minimalist design (that really made me a fan), it’s quite amazing at the changes that they were still able to make with the Atom 3. Mind you, the changes are plenty and most benefit the driver at high speeds.

The Atom 3 now sports new panels (what paneling there is, anyway) and new diagonal side rails. Even the return to the exhaust was changed. A deflector option is now available to lessen pressure on the driver’s head. The seats have been lowered for comfort and better handling.

Aside from those, the Atom 3’s chassis is, amazingly, wider by .06 m for more elbow room and the passenger compartment is .1 m. Despite this, the dimensions have been maintained. It will still be powered by a 2.0L Honda Type R, only this time it will also be the latest version.

Source: Car Design News via Autoblog