10 things you didn’t know about the Ariel Nomad R

The regular Nomad (although there’s nothing actually regular about any Nomad) is powered by Honda’s 2.4-litre K24 engine. The R isn’t. Instead its motor is altogether more intense, the same Honda supercharged K20Z3 used by the older Atom 3.5R. 

It’s a 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine, which although smaller in capacity is helpfully boosted by an Eaton supercharger for grand totals of 335bhp and 243lb ft – 100bhp and 66lb ft more than the standard car. You also get a new and uprated intercooler, exhaust, coil packs and fuel injection.

Don’t despair. While the regular Nomad’s manual is great, to keep pace with this insane engine, you need something more special. So please welcome the six-speed Sadev sequential gearbox. Full motorsport spec as you’d find in a top line rally car, complete with dog rings and straight cut gears, it weighs just over 35kg. Upshifts take just 40 milliseconds.

Only no it’s not. Rather than having two paddles, the Nomad R has just one, and you either pull it (upshifts) or push it (downshifts). It’s big enough not to miss even if you’re being pummelled by the terrain, made of carbon fibre and connects to that pneumatically operated gearbox. Which means gearshifts, as well as being instantaneous, sound amazing. 

Left foot brake. Even if you don’t currently, this is the car to learn it in. Really helps get the back end moving if you’re on the loose. And you won’t have to worry about your left leg having to do too much, as the clutch is merely a temporary inconvenience. 

Once you’ve pulled away, and providing you keep some load on the transmission, the clutch pedal isn’t needed. You can use it if you want, but you’re not getting your left leg down and back up in 40 miliseconds, are you? Downshifts are especially amazing – super prompt and accurate, they just fire through so fast the car doesn’t have time to get unsettled.

The Nomad R isn’t designed to do the same job as the plain one. Ariel says you need to think of it as a tarmac rally car. And you don’t fit a tarmac rally car with long travel Fox shocks and big knobbly tyres. No, you fit it with Bilsteins (or Ohlins if you’re feeling extravagant) and rip roads to shreds. 

We ran an Ariel Nomad for a few months back in 2017. Supercharged speed does not work well with soft, slow suspension. Have one or the other. 

I’ll just leave this one here. 0-62mph in 2.9secs, facts fans.

Fast to accelerate, slower than your average supermini at the top end. Who cares? It’s not aero that holds it back, but gearing. It is exceptionally short. At a steady state 70mph, the engine’s fizzing along at 4,500rpm. 

But here’s the thing. Because the Nomad R is so bespoke, and the gearbox is a motorsport item, Ariel can fit different gears in the casing for you, specifically longer fourth, fifth and sixth ratios. You want these. You really, really want these. 

Ariel only made five and they’ve now all been spoken for. Yep, even though the list price was almost double the norm at £77,400.

Maybe we should have called it 'nine things', because let’s face it, you knew this already.