Originally intended to document my experience of DeLorean ownership, focus is often radical and strange, boring and obtuse.

Sunday, July 22, 2007

The Ariel Atom

Wow! It's me and a tiny car! Holy!

Our city held our first annual 50s Greaserfest, which some would consider appropriate given all the politicians that took the stage and did their best to appeal to the audience down by the water.

We wandered up and down the rows of 50s and 60s classics, staring at their spiffy chrome and juicy juiced engines. We got ice cream Sundays and apologized to the owners of the cars as we spilled our dripping ice cream on their tweed seats. Then we noticed something totally unexpected.

The Ariel Atom.

I watched the tiny, candy coated hand-built racer roll across the grass, and was surprised at how quiet it was. It didn’t fit in with the other cars in the field, but it didn’t matter. It was the super-yummy Atom!

I’ve only ever seen this car in this awesome video, and was utterly blown away by it’s amazingness. I never thought I would ever see one in real life, since the company only makes a few hundred per year, and didn’t think there was much of a market for it way up north here where there’s snow on the ground for 13 of the 12 months of the year.

The owner was only there briefly and was preparing to leave, so I snapped a couple of pictures before he headed off to some race track to make some cocky Ferrari Enzo driver eat his dust, dust and more dust.

This particular Atom had the supercharged Chevrolet Ecotec engine in 250 hp format, which was 105% more powerful than the version Suz had in her Crapalier.

I don’t know if all Atom’s are, but this one was street-legal, so the owner tipped his hat to me, bid me adieu, felt his moustache with his fingertips, pulled his goggles over his eyes and slowly buzzed across the grass heading toward the exit.

Labels: ,

10 Comments:

Blogger Ellie Creek Ellis said...

your weekend of cars, mine of snakes!

12:37:00 AM

 
Blogger Unknown said...

Wow that looks neat ... first time I'm hearing of the Atom.

8:14:00 AM

 
Blogger X said...

I love car shows...I know next to nothing about cars, but I can fee the adrenaline pumping just by looking at them. That looks like a snazzy one!

I've always wanted to be an F1 driver. I don't think it will ever happen, but judging by the amount of speeding tickets I get, I'm halfway there.

6:23:00 PM

 
Blogger ZoeyBella said...

My dream has been to drive on the GM test track, speaking of fast and fancy cars. Sounds like the festival was quite interesting ;)

6:27:00 PM

 
Blogger Monogram Queen said...

You are such an auto buff! If you run across a 20's era Stutz Bearcat give it's seat a feel for me. That's my new dream car. That and a 1950 Mercury.

8:37:00 AM

 
Blogger Martini said...

Zoeybella - my brother-in-law drove the GM test track in B.C. last year; I forget which driver went with him. He said there wasn't enough straight to get the Corvette up to any great speed.

10:55:00 AM

 
Blogger honkeie said...

Manly to the max, man, cars, titties and bonners. What else can man be haha.

11:34:00 AM

 
Blogger Ellie Creek Ellis said...

mmm i DREAM of having a corvette!

12:33:00 AM

 
Blogger Vengelyne said...

It's street-legal, but it doesn't look very street-safe. :|

7:37:00 AM

 
Blogger Rainypete said...

That looks like it's way too much fun to drive. The cost of ownership would kill me as once I splashed out for the car I would need ever increasing amounts of money to pay for the speeding tickets and resulting insurance increases.

12:59:00 PM

 

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home

 

This many people accidentally stumbled upon my site
...while searching for porn.