‘That’s it. Just
go and have fun!’Handover briefings come no shorter than for
Ariel’s skeletal Nomad. Ben Miller is excitedThe thing is, it’s still a car. The
Ariel Nomad might look more
like a lunar lander/Honda Civic
mash-up (the engine’s shared with
a US-market Civic), a Tamiya R/C
buggy made real or an escaped
special forces plaything, but as soon
as you’re in, you know what to do.
Ignition on, immobiliser off,
prod the correct black button.
(Handily, the other, identical
one is the horn...) Engage first
gear on the beautifully crisp and
short-throw six-speed manual
’box, clutch (measured, firm-ish),
gas, go. And then you’re off, rolling
across the face of the Earth in a car
determined to make a playground
of everywhere and anywhere.
How it drives beyond that reallyisn’t like any other car, but we’ve
plenty of time – six months or
so – to get to that. First there’s the
matter of precisely what breed of
Nomad we have, for they’re not all
created equal.
The Nomad is, of course,
the product of Ariel Motors, in
Crewkerne, Somerset. In two
decades Ariel’s become a humming
little craft car maker with a global
profile at odds with its tiny size
and output (some 30 employees,
80 to 100 cars a year). The waiting
list for a new car is a little under
three years, depreciation simply
isn’t a factor and the masterstroke
(together with an eye for designing
great-looking, wild-driving
masterpieces) remains Honda
power. A supply deal with Japan’s
great engine maker means Ariel’s
vehicles (its Ace motorcycle also
uses a Honda engine) circumvent
all the reservations you’d normally
have buying a low-volume,
niche machine, namely fears of
unreliability and parts availability.
A couple of hundred Nomads
have been built since it launched in
2015 – and they’ve been bought by a
truly global fanbase. It’s designed as
an all-terrain, all-weather plaything,
and buyers tend to fall into one of
three camps. ‘First off, there’s the
quad-bike guy,’ says Ariel’s Henry
Siebert-Saunders. ‘They want the
mud-ready tyres and it’ll never see a
road. It’ll get blasted around a field
and rolled, probably. Then there’s
the sports-car guy. He’s probably
had an Atom and now he’s curious
to try the Nomad, with the bigger,
18-inch wheels and track rubber,
short-ratio ’box, Öhlins... And then
there’s the guy who really doesn’t
know what he’s going to do with ⊲HelloAriel Nomad
Month 1The story so far
Wild, Honda-engined on-/off-road
weapon is ours to enjoy and try to
break for the rest of the year. Truly,
we are blessed
+ Goes anywhere; fast; drifty; does
anything...- ...except keep you dry, store stuff,
or in any way drive itself
Price £33,996 (£55,677 as tested)
Performance 2354cc four-cylinder,
235bhp, 221lb ft, 3.4sec 0-60mph,
124mph Efficiency n/a mpg
(official), 23.3mpg (tested) Energy
cost 25.6p per mile Miles this
month 331 Total miles 331Logbook