SPOLIER ALERT – you won’t find any technical details or stories of power slides / rally jumps in this post. It’s just a few bland observations from my first 750 miles of A and B road driving, plus stuff that I wanted to know before ownership…
== Background ==
I previously owned an Atom 2 (N/A) which I sold 5 years ago and have been longing to fill the gap it left since then. The Atom was my daily drive (except in severe weather) and the plan is for the Nomad to be the same. TBH, I grew tired of the Atom as a daily drive; crashing through potholes and getting quite hot in slow moving traffic. A light shower at 40 MpH felt like acupuncture (you don’t wear a full-face helmet when popping to the shops). I know the Atom was never designed to be a daily tarmac warrior, but I am hoping the Nomad will deliver more on this front, again, knowing it was not designed for this purpose either.
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== Spec ==
As a daily drive, I opted for N/A with standard suspension and the AT (50/50) tyres on 15” rally wheels. A suspension upgrade may be on the cards in the future, but let’s see how the next few months pan out.
As others have said, the N/A needs working hard to reach Atom levels of pull and there is no doubt that a SC would cater for this. So far, a downshift or two to bring the revs up to 5,000 RPM before a boot does reach N/A Atom levels of urgency (in my mind), but of course this needs a bit more input and planning before execution. The N/A is not quite as ‘urgent’.
What I did opt for though was comfort and bling – a machine that makes me grin on may way to and from the office; when ferrying the kids to and from their activities; when hitting the road at 7am on a Sunday morning before the rest of the nation is awake; when parked up and when crawling through traffic.
In the comfort corner we have side panels, custom made boot, SatNav, larger aluminium radiator to help in slower traffic. In the bling corner we have 2 x LED whips (cut to a height that means the car will fit into the garage), hydraulic handbrake, 4 spot lights, winch and a couple of bonnets that will be wrapped in different colours as the mood takes me.
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== Initial thoughts ==
The huge grin of Ariel ownership is back! This time though, without flies and bugs in my teeth and small stones bouncing off my head.
Being that slightly bit higher off the ground, buses and lorries no longer try to suffocate me at traffic lights. I also don’t have to crane my neck quite so much to hear white-van man ask me how much it costs or “what it’ll do”. Most of all though, the suspension squat is amazing! It’s like a visual indicator of where the grip is currently being placed and an opportunity to make amends before your next move.
== Getting going ==
Having driven 350HP diesel cars for the past 10+ years, I have become accustom to the 550lb/ft low end torque they deliver. The N/A 2.4 engine in the Nomad easily matches that experience given the car is a 1/3 the weight of the German marques I am used to. I thought that I would be pulling away in 2nd (like in the Atom), but it really is much happier with 1st. Once the wheels are moving, 2nd takes you up to 50/60 MpH before short shifting to 4th or 5th to cruise. 6th is best for 60 MpH+ as, like I said, the N/A needs revs to deliver any useful instant power. Even at 70, you need to be in 5th, maybe even 4th, to get past quickly. All very relaxed and graceful generally. Drop it a couple gears though and the urgency is quite something. Granted, not quite as urgent as the Atom (or a SC Nomad), but I’m happy.
==On the go==
Again, that body roll; and ability to soak up bumps in the road. I love the steering feel. You can read the road surface underneath, but it just wants to track in a straight line and seemingly ignores most tram lines that I need to circumnavigate in other cars – maybe because the wheel span is quite wide?
On 15” wheels, you do have to work quite hard to get through a roundabout at pace, due to the desire to track straight, but the pliable tread blocks of the A/T rubber does a great job in feeding back grip levels. I haven’t experimented with corner acceleration / braking yet. I’ll wait for it to be run in properly before starting that little exploration…
There is a great engine burble when decelerating down to near tick-over revs. Not quite the pop and bang of overrun after hard acceleration, but sweet when you can invoke it, especially going past a pub garden on a warm summer evening. It’s a real head-turner.
== Stopping ==
I opted for Alcons at the front and Sport brakes at the rear, together with the adjustable brake bias. The Alcons bite instantly, despite the discs and pads being new. That doesn’t mean the car stops instantly! It means the you’re facing the tarmac instantly while the front suspension builds enough torsion to transfer the stopping force to the tyres. Maybe adjustable suspension here will help, but it is more likely that I need to get used to how the car works.
I have had front wheel lock-up a few times and the remote brake bias is now on 2 clicks to the rear, which seems to have helped on this particular set-up. As explained above, I haven’t really explored hard cornering / stopping during the running in period, so the 2 clicks maybe become 4 or -2 over time. Being able to adjust on the move though is great.
BTW – horrendous brake squeal from all four corners at first. After about 400 / 500 miles it mostly dies down, but at 750 miles I still have some rear squeal when the discs / pads heat up. They probably need a few more miles on them, or some copper grease…
== Wow factor==
This is, after all, why I bought the car…
Standing still, it delivers what I was hoping for. It looks like a bad-ass post-apocalypse machine. That bad-ass image dies instantly when you try to get out of the fecking thing to grab a Snickers bar from the BP garage on the A303 on the way home. You heave yourself out of the car in an undignified manner, stretch your legs and back and let out a deep sigh, waiting for your hearing to return, before doing a John Wayne swagger across the forecourt.
Getting in is easier, even in front of a crowd. You simply grab, swivel and let go – Dukes of Hazzard style. Then you realise you’re sitting on the harness and begin to excavate the buckles from ‘down below’ while on-lookers are pointing their phones at you. Doesn’t take long to get the hang of it all though. Hooking the shoulder straps over the seat makes the whole process much easier.
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On the move, there are grins aplenty. From you as well as onlookers. You don’t have to take corners sideways to get noticed and pointed at. Yummy mummies on the school run are more receptive of the sensible driver too; allegedly…
==Best Bits==
• Hydraulic handbrake. Having the ‘parking’ handbrake in the centre (as opposed to on the right in the Atom) is much easier to use, but it is a little too far back to be useful in every day traffic (the seats pin you in quite nicely). So far, the hydraulic handbrake has been used mainly for hill starts, which is worth the money alone. It’ll be interesting to see what it does ‘on the move’ once run-in properly.
• Daytime Running Lights (DLRs). A standard part of the 2 or 4 roof mounted spot lamps. These come on with the side lights and add a menacing look being a crisp white LED light. When you find yourself in a tree covered B-road, they add a sense of presence to what is actually quite a small car, making other drivers naturally slow down and make room for you because they are not quite sure what they are seeing (to be continued below…)
• LED whips. Always on! You can’t see the glow during the day, but again, pushing on down a tree covered B-road and they, with the DLRs, make your presence known.
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Plus, it is somewhere to mount your flags. Worry not though, when we get bored with England flags (like say… 1980), I have Union Jack flags to replace them with. Always thinking people. Always thinking…
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==Fixed Bits==
I’ve done a bit of tweaking that was largely based on my ‘research’ while climbing up the Nomad waiting list over the past 11 months. Some of these were also based on previous Atom ownership and I knew I had to do from day 1…
• Seat belt grommets. There are 8 eye-bolts that secure the quick release harness system to the chassis. The problem I (and others) have found is that there can be quite a lot of jiggling of the harness anchors in the eye bolts which drums up a fair amount of metallic rattling. A quick and cost-effective fix is to insert rubber (or polyurethane) grommets to the eye bolts. This has been discussed in this thread viewtopic.php?f=1&t=14630. The links in the thread seem to be dead, so I tracked down the parts to here https://www.electricalcarservices.com/n ... 050/p-4028.
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• Panel knock. These cars are hand made and every machine differs. On mine though, I found 2 areas where the panels where knocking against the chassis. A strip of Velcro ‘fluffy side’ https://www.halfords.com/motoring/paint ... x-1m-black has done the trick. NOTE: on the rear, I had to remove the 2 rear hex bolts, either side of the suspension strut, holding the panel to be able to access the chassis. No need to worry about your nuts dropping – they are spot-welded to the frame. The front didn’t need any unbolting.
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• Key holder. Did this on the Atom too. A simple snap hook https://www.toolstation.com/shop/p39642 attached with a zip tie, just in front of the immobiliser loop gives me somewhere to hang the keys before flight. I attach the keys before getting in to avoid the dreaded ‘pocket wrestle’ whilst seated and it also reminds me to remove them just before getting out.
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• Floor mats. Artificial lawn. Did this on the Atom 8 years ago too. Why bother? Well others have mentioned dirt and dust getting into the car and kicking up a fuss when setting off, which is true. Personally, I got fed up with small stones (and escaped coins!) rattling around and was forever accelerating hard or braking hard when pulling into the garage to get the stones to a place where I could remove them. Plus, you know, every car needs car mats
. I did see wear and tear in the Atom tub (before the ‘mats’) where your heels dig in just below the pedal box. It needed the seats out to measure / fit the ‘mats’, but I did this at the same time as the next item…- Mats.jpg (177.63 KiB) Viewed 2392 times
• Lumbar support. I have to say, the 3-hour drive home from Crewkerne on pick up day left me slightly debilitated. I have the standard seats which are mostly great, but the angle of the seats is slightly more ‘laid back’ than my aged body feels comfortable with. I found a gap at the very lower spine that was causing me to constantly shift around in the seat. I have added one of these https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01MFAEY4C/ and it has made the world of difference. Needed the seats out to strap them in properly and I’m not yet sure what the lasting effect of rain will be, but that gap has been plugged – for now.
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• Blind spots. Another lesson from the Atom. The mirrors are sleek and pointly, but quite flat. The difference to everyday driving with a set of these https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B079HBY8V6 has been quite astounding. Best bit – I can see the LED whips glowing at night now, as well as my grinning face. OK, maybe not a good advert… NOTE: They need to be attached to the ‘outside’ of the mirrors. I made the mistake of sticking them to the ‘inside’ and less than a minute into the first drive realised that not only dd they take up valuable usable visual space, but they also ‘messed with the mind’. Wide-angle convex lens go on the outside of mirrors. Many hours of scraping off double-sided tape and applying silicon sealant taught me that. Doh!
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• Locking wheel nuts. I wanted to know what the size / depth / shape of the standard wheel bolts were to pre-order a set of locking wheel nuts. I didn’t ask and waited to get my hands on the car. I marched into Halfords with a removed wheel nut in hand (some strange looks in the car park removing a wheel nut from your own car!) and opted for McGard (https://www.halfords.com/motoring/car-a ... ts-24157su). Don’t forget your copper grease folks!
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• Shock socks / suspension protection bags. If you work for Ariel, please stop reading now. I really wanted these, but at £225 from Ariel, I couldn’t see why Demon Tweaks were able to sell them for £65. I waited to get the car, then measured and ordered. On standard suspension set-up, I went for these https://www.demon-tweeks.co.uk/motorspo ... protectors. 2.5" with 12"-14" at the front and 10"-12" at the rear. If I had to do it again thought, I’d opt for the 3” diameter at the rear. The 2.5” fit OK, but the rear springs are wider than the fronts. Thankfully, extra wide Velcro on the bags saved me. I have easily spent any savings through going my own route on petrol though. Every cloud…
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• The boot. Thanks for the input from others when researching this topic (viewtopic.php?f=54&t=16987). It really has made a difference to everyday usability, including somewhere to securely store the locking wheel nut and steering wheel, as well as the TomTom for longer periods.
==Broken Bits==
I am ashamed to say that since having the car for almost 2 weeks, I have defaced it quite a bit. Please understand that this was after months of planning and they all seemed like a good idea at the time. I’m still ashamed though…
• Novelty sticker. Warning: the novelty is thinner than the sticker itself…
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• The “don’t touch that” button. OK, so a bit of a story behind this one… The WARN winch comes with a remote control. The remote control sits in a holder that is pop-rivetted to the handbrake centre panel. I was a little uncomfortable that the remote could be removed quite so easily, so set about drilling out the rivet and storing the whole thing in the lockable boot. But of course, that left a hole in the centre panel. What would you have filled the hole with?
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• An aerial on my Ariel. When the car was launched, there seems to have been a body coloured aerial attached. This is not an option today. It does seem though that the light bar design still has the hole for such a pointy-up device with the spacing of the 4 lamps tailored around said pointy-up device. I had to fill the hole with something…
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At this point in the proceedings, it seems I am not allowed to upload any more pics to this post. I'm going to put the kettle on and let the servers settle down for a bit, then I'll have another crack...
