Ariel Atom 500: Supercar Performance, Supercar Price

by Noah Joseph (RSS feed)
Jun 9th 2009 at 9:01AM

There's no such thing as a free lunch, and if you want a car that'll go as fast as a supercar, expect to pay as much as you would for a supercar. That much is becoming more and more evident as the prices of exotic sportscars continue to rise, and British sportscar-maker Ariel has revealed the its upcoming Atom 500 will cost at least $160,000.

The existing Ariel Atom 300 is already one of the best-performing cars on the road, even with a relatively modest four-cylinder engine. The Atom 500, however, will pack a compact V8 producing some 500 horsepower. But it won't come cheap, the anticipated $50,000 cost of its custom-developed V8 engine alone driving the price of the limited-edition Atom 500 to about triple that of its four-cylinder counterpart. But for all that cash, a lucky few buyers will get one heck of a performer: try 0-60 in about 2.5 seconds, fast enough to keep pace with the legendary Bugatti Veyron, which at ten times the price makes the Atom look like a relative bargain.

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Filed under: Luxury Cars & Autos

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Racetrack_Owner Jun 15th 2009 5:59PM

Except, of course, that the Atom has no top end, and that 0-60 time is about the same that you'll see on the already-overpriced 300HP version. This new engine was designed around the idea of simply putting two Hayabusa motorcycle engines together which individually cost about $4K retail, so it's hard to understand where the quoted $50K price comes from. The total price for this thing is simply unjustified. It's sad, too, they're interesting, capable track toys, but not for the coin they're asking.