Roadster

Make
Tesla
Segment
Compact

The thing which probably makes the Ariel Nomad so loveable is not that someone built a really fast dune buggy. That, we've seen before. What's great about the Nomad is that it is also street legal, and is therefore insanely fast wherever it goes. Revealed last month, we now have specs, and so know for certain that it is insanely fast. The 2.4-liter four-cylinder Honda engine with Ariel software makes 235 horsepower and 221 lb-ft of torque, allowing for a 0-60 time of 3.4 seconds.

The vehicle weighs just 670 kg (1,474 lbs), which isn't much more than the road-only version, despite the extra off-road equipment. The price has been set at £30,000 ($45,503), which is obviously not cheap, but still comes in towards the lower end of the Ariel lineup. Ariel has even gone so far as to say that the Nomad could be competitive in the Dakar Rally, pretty much the ultimate in off-road motorsports. It stopped short of saying the car would win, but did say that it could make an impressive showing. We see no reason to doubt that, and you won't either once you see the video on the next page.

This is some footage of some testing and the Nomad looks exactly as awesome as we had hoped.