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The Ariel Atom is a road legal high performance sports car made by the Ariel Motor Company based in Crewkerne, Somerset, England, and was under license in North America by Brammo Motorsports from 2005 to 2007.

The Atom began as a student project by Coventry University transport design student Niki Smart. Known then as the LSC (Lightweight Sports Car), it was developed at the university in 1996 with input and funding from various automotive industry members, including British Steel and TWR. Ariel Motor Company boss Simon Saunders was a senior lecturer whose responsibility for the project was primarily as financial manager and design critic for Smart, whom he described as “The best all-round design student I’ve ever seen.” The car was first shown publicly at the British International Motor Show at the NEC in Birmingham in October 1996.

In 2005 Track and Race Car magazine published the results of a comprehensive test of a range of cars, from the Porsche 911 Carrera S, Ford GT, BMW M5 to the Caterham CSR 260. The supercharged Ariel Atom 2 won the 0–161–0 kph (0–100–0 mph) test by a clear margin at 10.88 seconds, ahead of the Caterham CSR 260 (11.41) and the Ford GT in fourth (13.17).

The following year, the Atom won Autocar’s 0–100 mph challenge as the new Ariel Atom 2 300 bhp supercharged edition achieved a time of 6.86 seconds, and then stopped from 100 in 3.8 seconds. At the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham, the Atom broke the indoor speed record. The high gloss floor that the cars ran on was only 220 m (720 ft) long, with an open door at the end of the hall. The driver of the Atom launched in fourth gear and still had wheelspin until the car reached 110 kph (68 mph) and started to get traction. The Atom was beaten only by a class nine Autograss car powered by a 2.0L Lexus-Toyota touring car engine which set the official indoor speed record, beating the previous record held by a Toyota F1 car driven by Toyota’s test driver Olivier Panis dressed as Top Gear’s driver The Stig.

In 2005 The Sunday Times measured the time taken for the Atom to accelerate from 0 to 97 kph (60 mph) at 2.89 seconds, making it the world’s third-fastest accelerating production car then available, after the Bugatti Veyron’s 2.46 seconds and the Ultima GTR at 2.6 seconds.

In late 2005, Brammo Motorsports of Ashland, Oregon signed a deal with Ariel, Ltd to manufacture the Ariel Atom in the United States. In the US the Atom 2 was available with the supercharged GM Ecotec engine, which was introduced in 2004 on the Saturn ION Red Line and is also used in the Chevrolet Cobalt SS. There was a limited run of 10 US-built Atom 2 cars in 2006–2007, which were powered by imported Honda K20As. Brammo ceased production of the Atom in 2007 to focus on the manufacture of an electric motorcycle.

In January 2008, it was officially announced that US licensed manufacturing of the new Ariel Atom 3 would be undertaken by specialty motorsports manufacturing company TMI AutoTech Inc at a purpose-built facility at Virginia International Raceway (VIR).

Wikipedia – Ariel Atom: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariel_Atom