The V8 Caterham was just unveiled in the past week, so naturally we can expect other lightweight track car manufacturers to respond, but I didn’t expect it this fast!
Ariel has its own monster V8-engineed Atom in the works and it will go on sale in Spring 2008. Surprise, surprise – it’s powered by the same 2.4 litre 40 valve V8 engine as the Caterham RST-V8! The Ariel Atom V8 is available with the supercharged version of the Russell Savory bike-derived V8 engine, putting out 500 horses at 10,000rpm and 406Nm of torque at 8,500rpm.
500 horses is a big difference from the second most powerful Atom which has 300 horses. “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 whats achievable in a road-registered car,” says Ariel boss Simon Saunders.
This is not the first V8-powered Ariel Atom. Sometime back, Dennis Palatov plonked in a 2.8 litre V8 derived from two inline-4 Suzuki Hayabusa engines into his Ariel Atom. It produced 400 horses at 10,000rpm.
I cannot wait for foreign publications to do shoot-out reviews comparing both the Caterham Seven and Ariel Atom powered by the same RST-V8 engine!
After dabbling for years in the IT industry, Paul Tan initially began this site as a general blog covering various topics of personal interest. With an increasing number of readers paying rapt attention to the motoring stories, one thing led to another and the rest, as they say, is history. An avid electronic gadget aficionado as well as big-time coffee lover, he's also the executive producer of the Driven motoring TV programme.
Crazy buggers!!!!
500 horses dragging a tin can…..
Damn…I like it!!!!
wow its used hayabusa engine meh
wheelspin at any gears.. nice~
this car is my favourite!
if comparing this beast with its rival caterham i will definitely choose this Atom…sexy, fierce and a lotsa power….caterham is ok but its a bit like a clssic f1 car
this is fantastic! a supercharged V8. This also means that the Caparo T1 is suddenly not so special anymore! I definitely prefer Ariel Atom over the dangerous Caparo. The Atom will most likely have a better suspension setup and relies less on aero to go fast.
i luv dis car…sweet
so big engine ?
Ill prefer to wait for what KTM X-bow can offer…hey i heard the offering DSG gbox
Who can drive this car? I don’t think it is safe at all.
power!!!