Ariel Nomad Looks Like the Most Fun You Can Have Off the Asphalt on Four Wheels

First, there was the Ariel Atom 500 which, as the name suggests, was a more powerful version of the stripped down racer using a V8 engine on a car weighing a little over 500 kilograms (1,100 lb).

A little while back, they've come up with the Ariel Nomad, a vehicle that would be considered posh only in a Mad Maxian universe. The barebones approach is still there, but this time it's been applied to an off-road vehicle. But don't think of the rock-crawling type of off-road - more like flying over anything that might get in the way.

The Ariel Nomad gets a quick presentation from Henry Siebert-Saunders, a member of the Ariel Motor Company team. The important things to remember are the 2.4 Ford turbo engine developing 240 hp and the two-stage springs and dampers. According to Henry, the Ohlins dampers are built in such a way that you can never hit a "hard bottom", with the compression going up five or six times once a certain point in their travel has been reached.

And then there's the Suzuki bike ridden by Graeme Irwin, a member of the Suzuki GB Motocross team. As any self-respecting competitional motocross rider, he starts by giving us the long list of injuries he's had over the years, but the 23 years-old Northern-Irish lad does it with a smile on his face that lets you know he's going to add to those and he's not going to regret any of them.

Seeing him ride is a thing of joy, going over the gravel roads that make up part of the Welsh Rally stages like he's done this all his life - even though, as he said it himself, it was his first time in this type of surface. And that footage towards the end taken from his helmet camera with the Atom Nomad just a few feet away is absolutely stunning. Just like these two machines are.