Spotted 10pm in Dartford

[Paul V]

Driving through Dartford last night a saw an Ariel Atom coming the other way, first time I’ve seen one on the road.

Was it anyone on here?

[Bruce Fielding]

What colour was it?

[Paul V]

It had a silver frame, I think the panels were red but only caught a quick glimpse so could be wrong, also it was dark.

[Bruce Fielding]

No one on here - but I think the old demo car used to be red...

[Paul V]

oh ok.

How many have been made now? Only other one I’ve seen moving was yours at Folembray last year.

[Bruce Fielding]

We're not sure... (and Simon won't tell us)

The latest one I've seen had a 128 chassis number (mine's 018), but the 1XX could be the MkII. We think about 100 seems right, although the factory is running at full blast at the moment. Quite a few went to Oz, and one has gone to the US so far. At least one is in France, but not sure about the rest of mainland Europe.

[gteditor]

The Ariel Atom spotted in Dartford a few weeks back was being driven by Keith Wood, editor of Track and Race Cars. He was on his way to Le Mans. You can read about the trip in the September issue of the magazine (on-sale 12th August).
TRC have aslo driven and raced the the race-car in their June 2004 issue.

Hope this clears things up.

[Bruce Fielding]

There's a nice pic of the racer on their website: www.trcmagazine.com/

...well, I say 'website', it's actually just a single page at the moment from the looks of things.