HUGE thumbs up to Eddie Hill @ Eddie Hill's Fun Cycles

[beanboy]

I just met Eddie for the first time.  He spent several hours speaking with me and took me on a brief ride.

Wow.  What an incredible ambassador and champion of the Atom brand.  TMI is very, very lucky to have a guy like Eddie behind their product. 

Eddie is one of the nicest and most helpful people I have ever met.  Clearly a very, very knowledgeable and giving person.  He spent a lot of time talking about cars, boats, model airplanes, and Atoms.  He has obviously lived life to its fullest and loves sharing it with others.  If I can ever be 1/2 as cool as Eddie I think I'll die a happy man.

To those who read my post about dry eye:  I was able to try a windshield off (and on) ride in an Atom 3.  I was wearing a helmet and RayBan sunglasses.  I'm certain windshield-off will never be in my future.  Even at 30mph I was uncomfortable, and at 60 it was hard to keep my eyes open.

With the windshield on it was a different story.  With the windshield on the only air circulating in the helmet was actually coming UP from the footwell area.  I don't know if a different style helmet would fix that, or a pair of goggles would, or if it would take those side panels that all Atom 'purists' seem to hate with vigor.  I'm confident that some combination of those options would result in a ride that would be comfortable for me, even for relatively long periods of time.

As for what I thought of the Atom...
It's horrifyingly fast.  Absolutely horrifying.  I think it is an absolute necessity to have the passenger footrest-because wedging my feet against it was the only way I could feel like I wasn't going to fly out of the car.  It gives the passenger some sense of sanity.  The ride wasn't very long or extreme because the car is going to a customer soon.  But what I saw is best described as barely believable.  I've never ridden a sport bike but I assume that would be the only thing that even comes close to this.  I've never asked anyone to slow down in my life but my stomach was so high up in my throat I almost did.  The acceleration makes me think that anything beyond an Atom is truly an area of diminishing returns--how much faster than 2.9 seconds do you really need to be to 60? 

Where does this leave me?
If an Atom is going to be in my future I'm going to have to get rid of my Ferrari 360.  I purchased a 2011 BMW M3 in August, which indirectly started my hunt for an Atom.  The M3 makes the 360 seem redundant, so I have been searching for a 'project' car of some sort (factory five cobra, atom, etc).  So I need to do a little more thinking about what my goals are before I take the huge plunge of selling the relatively practical 360 and hop on the extremely-fringe-and-radical Atom bandwagon.  Has anyone else jumped ship from a high end Porsche, Ferrari, or Lamborghini and gone to an Atom?  If so I'd love to hear from you.

Wow, what a machine.

Parker

[ghettoracer]

Before I convinced my buddy "H" about getting the Atom (he bought the Atom in 2006), he already have a pretty nice fleet of exotics.  Porsche Carrera GT, Ferrari F430 Spider, Mercedes CLK-DTM, even a Bugatti Veyron.  LOL.  The Atom he picked he a Brammo built K20A naturally aspirated but it's plenty fast.  I told him we could build a 300+ whp NA K24+ but he never seem all that interested so maybe it is fast enough for him.  Then last few years he started racing F430 Challenge and now F458 Challenge.  I'm no so sure he track the Atom much anymore, if at all...  Once you go light weight it is hard to go back to heavier cars.

[Bruce Fielding]

BMW for everyday

Fezza for cruising

Atom for twisties and tracks

I'd get something less well sorted than an Atom as a project car - something with more options... In the UK this would be a Caterham or something like that. Not sure if there's an equivalent in the USA...

Alternatively get a classic and spend your time, money and effort on bringing something wonderful back to life...