Newbie (Germany) - Specification Lists?

[Fusion]

Hello Atom experts,

I'm an Australian living in Germany and I am in the process of looking into the options for getting an Atom on the road here.  I 'only' want an NA car at the moment.  Even a 160hp would be enough for me (for now).

Any advice would be greatly appreciated but at the moment I am looking for a list of Atom generations and their specifications (IE what changed for each iteration).  Can anyone recommend a good specification summary/table?

I understand that the only road legal Atom in Germany is the Atom 3.  Can anyone confirm?

Cheers

[speedmachine]

Hi there and welcome to the Atomworld.

I'm Dutch and know about 15 German Atom owners, which also include Atoms 2, I believe TobiZ on this forum has a 2.

All Atoms can get on German licenceplates, allthough sometimes one has to be creative!

On this moment I know of one Dutch Atom 2/ 245 for sale in perfect, almost new state, this one is LHD and on Dutch license plates. I'm pretty sure that a car on Dutch plates will be accepted right away with ze Germans... it is way more difficult to get a car on Dutch plates, compared to German plates, that's also why there are about 5 Dutch Atoms and maybe about 30-40 German.

This Dutch car is not actively advertised, so if you want to know about it, send me an email or PM with your emailadres and I shoot you some information. I can also get you in contact with some German owners if you would like to.

The Atom 1 currently advertised on Mobile.de is there for about 1-2 years, so not sure if it is the best to buy ánd for 30k you should be able to (almost)buy an Atom 2. (i did make an offer about 1,5 years ago on this car, but he wasn't willing to negotiate, so  bought an Atom 2 supercharged.
Let us know what you can/want to spend, maybe one of the members knows of a nice car for you.

I am also organising an atom meeting at the Nordschleife, but the date is on loose screws, so not sure yet, but somewhere around august.
Good luck finding your Atom

[John Scherrer]

See Bruce's Reply #3 for a succinct synopsis ..

http://www.atomclub.com/forum/index.php/topic,14540.msg258340.html#msg258340

[Fusion]

Thanks Speedmachine, I will PM you regarding what you mentioned.

I can spend up to 35K€, but I only want to spend what I have to.  If I can get the fun car I want for 20-25k - all the better.

Basically, I am still working out what I require.

My thoughts so far:
- I will use it as road car and I'm interested in the features that make road driving a better experience. 
- If possible I would like one that has not done much/any track work.
- The windscreen option is appealing to me. Can these be retrofitted? How good are they?
- Non-supercharged
- The talk of the series 3 being more 'smooth' because of the new engine mounts, balancing shaft and stiffer engine bay sounds good.  Are these things noticeable and worth paying for?
- I have a slight preference towards RHD (because I am from Australia and if the situation changes there I might one day take it back).  What is involved in changing RHD to LHD and visa-versa?  I have heard some talk of an 'ambidextrous' chassis....
- Insurance?  What are my options in Germany?

Too many questions, I know. 

@John - Thank you for your link to the post by Bruce.  That is what I was looking for and a great start.

[speedmachine]

copy past from another topic where I just wrote this rather long post:


1. Not sure about the 160 and if you mean the Atom 1's Kseries 160 or the Atom 2's Honda S series 160, but i did recently try the 245 in comparison to my (almost) 300. The peak power feels about the same, I mean, put them on a line and sprint, you'll be reving to the max and both cars stay in their max power band and theyre almost equally fast, so not much difference there, BUT thé biggest difference I noticed was that the NA engine was kind of lazy down the Vtec reving points and in 6th there was next to no power until it comes to reving. The supercharged version however has power practically from idle and won't stop or feel lazy/tired or what so ever anywhere in the revrange! (going in 6th from 50 miles an hour actually pushes pretty hard)245 is surely fast enough but you'll be shifting (back) some bits more with street use (on the track you'll be in your good revrange). I didn't felt like it was really that much slower.

2. the aero kit is bought through the factory and make sure you break your litlle daughters saving acount, it'll cost you about 6k. there are some rearwing solutions for about 1500, but the front one needs a different subframe (towingeye kit) (only through the factory, allthough I know one for sale)


3. The list to look for is about as tiny as it can get. The Honda's gearbox tends to have some syncro problems in the Honda cars, but you'll feel this with a proper testrun, I believe the weak points are from 2-3 and from 4-5, most Atom gearboxes are fine though. You should check all the pushrods by jacking the wheels one by one and feel for play, if there is ány play at all, they need changing and that'll be as costly as about 1350 pounds I guess (not doing it yourself)
The most important advice the factory gave me during my search was "you can see about everything, so if it looks used...it probably is" 
The Honda unit almost never fails, if a testdrive tells you it runs fine, it is and will be for longer periods of time, or you'll really have bad luck.
Some track time isn't a dealbreaker, but it needs some more maintaining

4. a 20k mileage car can be as new as a brand new one, just check the history with the factory through it's VIN and a visible inspection test drive tells the rest. The Honda engine is made for 200k miles without too much of maintaining in a 1300kg car, so this one is not suffering under this 600kg weight. the chassis also doesn't suffer without having accidents, so if the gearbox, pushrod etc are fine, than no problem. Check the clutch though, allthough the materials arent too expensive, it is an engine out operation.

5. you want the 300 and you want to look for a good specced car. A car with wings (if wanted, they don't have a function apart from looking uhm like they do), Alcon brakes, brakebias adjuster and supercharger isn't that much more expensive than one without all that, doing it afterwards is more expensive, wild guess is 5-6 for aero, 5-6 for supercharger (I know one for sale), 4-5(?) for Alcon goodies.  Same thing for the Dymags, they are thé lightes wheel and you will notice this, they are almost 4k with tires and 3-3,4k without...

As for me, I bought a proper specced car with lots of wheels (handy when you track the car a lot) and I didn't pay a lot more than a 220 now offered over here.



As for your other questions, the windscreen is not liked by me, but does it's function great, it sure does make the ride more comfortable and more important, you can drive the autobahn without helmet or even glasses if you like! It is possible to retrofit, you will need an other bonnet though (bonnet is about 180 pounts excl vat, window I don't know)

RHD seems good now, but getting it registered is slightly more difficult than a european licensed car. The UK cars are registered through an SVA and this needs more input with TUV than a EU plate. It obviously isn't impossible though, all German registered cars were UK cars once, since this is the only way to register a new car. (A eu registered car should be accepted without any problem, it is sort of obligatory to accept a EU car in every EU country)

There are 'ambidextrous' chassis but they are rarely seen and sold as they have some more visible tubing where the passenger sits. (in order to fit the steering) I don't think there is one for sale now, there was one last year.

this one is sharply prices, I don't know the car, so I can't comment on it's quality. If a car has been tracked, this isn't that much of a problem and you will find lots of cars are tracked, but only the real track enthusiast get to the limit of the car, so you might want to check you don't buy a "track only" car. Always check the vin with the factory, they know a lot about their cars. Unfortunately not about all EU cars, but always try
http://suchen.mobile.de/auto-inserat/andere-andere-ariel-atom-2-245-zwickau/179036132.html?lang=de&pageNumber=1&__lp=1&scopeId=C&sortOption.sortBy=price.consumerGrossEuro&makeModelVariant1.modelDescription=ariel&makeModelVariant1.searchInFreetext=false&makeModelVariant2.searchInFreetext=false&makeModelVariant3.searchInFreetext=false&negativeFeatures=EXPORT

insurance, I don't know, I live in the Netherlands

as for smoothness of the 3, I thought it would be an other world, but I felt that it was a minor change and I prefer the roughness of the 2. In your case (opting for a windscreen) you might like it more, but don't expect real big differences here, it stays a car with rattles and a very hard ride.