- Ladies and gentlemen,
they're the boutique manufacturer
that makes go-carts for grownups.
Go-karts that can rip your face off that's
'cause your face is outside of the car.
It's the company that was born 150 years ago,
died 50 years ago and then came back
from the dead 20 years ago making ultra low production,
ultra lightweight speed monsters.
In this video, we're gonna tell you
how this company went from making really old motorcycles
to some of the most insane four wheel vehicles
the world has ever seen.
Also stick around for a huge announcement about me
and Nolan's involvement in a certain video game
where you can race this car on Dirt 5.
This is everything you need to know to get up
to speed on the Ariel Motor Company.
Whaa!
(upbeat music)
Chapter one, the death of Ariel Motors.
Two dudes named James Starley
and William Hillman started building penny farthing bikes,
those are the ones with the big old wheel
in the front and the little wheel in the back,
under the name Ariel in an industrial Hamlet
in Southwest Birmingham, England in 1870.
Well, that's my cue.
I'm gonna head out,
anything before 1985 makes my eyes glaze over.
No dude I promise, I'm gonna get to the fun stuff really,
really soon,
the face melting stuff
but you gotta understand where we came from in order
to understand where we are.
You know what I mean?
That's life.
Okay but only because that was so deep.
For example, the dudes went with the name Ariel
which is the spirit
of the air in William Shakespeare's, The Tempest.
They made a name
for themselves with a very successful model.
The Ariel 50 incher.
It was the first all metal bicycle with rubber tires
for that extra smooth ride.
Then in 1898,
they graduated to motor power
when they made a 2.25 horsepower tricycle.
This thing is my dream tricycle.
I want to twin turbo one
and throw some nice (indistinct) forms on it.
Jason hit me up.
I guess you could say the first car
that Ariel ever made was a Quadricycle
that had 2.75 horsepower and a water cooled cylinder head.
Apart from that,
the first two decades of business were a mess,
lots of bankruptcy and name changes and boring stuff.
Sounds like Shakespeare.
I don't believe that you don't like Shakespeare
because that joke was informed.
I liked you better when you only talked about cars.
The first commercially successful models
that Ariel made happened after the company hired a designer
by the name of Val Paige to refurbish their brand,
his design for the Red Hunter Motorcycle
to budding in the early 1930s was sleek.
I mean the boy was eye catching
and it showcased a large four stroke engine proudly.
The Ariel Red Hunter line came in 350 CC
and 500 CC versions and were a favorite
for grass and dirt track racers as
well as young enthusiasts like yourselves.
It could be tuned to make 24 horsepower
which for a motorcycle at that time was a freaking boatload.
One thing that really boosted the marquee was a couple
of wins at the prestigious Maudes Trophy,
a grueling motorcycle endurance test
that put bikes through hell and back.
Like they went to hell but then they came back.
Ariel made stylish, reliable motorcycles
that sold very well which is why in 1936,
they were able to buy another motorcycle company
that you might have heard of, Triumph.
All right, now we're talking.
Yeah, I ride a bike.
Maybe after the show I can show you one
of my wheelies.
Shortly after the takeover,
Ariel released another absolute slapper dang banger
of a bike called the Square Four, a 995 CC,
four cylinder hog that looks literally sick as heck.
It was extremely popular and by the end of World War II,
Ariel was one of the largest manufacturers in Great Britain.
(engine revving)
In 1947 they invented the world's first telescopic fork
for a production motorcycle
which basically every single bike in the world uses today.
They started finding success overseas,
especially with their best known model of the era,
the Cyclone.
It had a high compression 650 CC Headmaster engine
and it was famous because Buddy Holly owned one.
He's the one with the glasses that died in the plane.
(engine revving)
In 1951, the Ariel and Triumph brands were sold
to Birmingham Small Arms Company.
They killed the four stroke engines Ariel was using
at the time in favor of two strokes in hopes
of combining motorcycle looks with scooter power.
It was dumb and it didn't work and by 1967,
the company had folded proving
that people don't kill motorcycles, gun manufacturers do.
Chapter two, the birth of Ariel Motors.
So we're only a few minutes
in the video and Ariel's already dead or is it?
In the 1980s, a guy named Simon Saunders was working
as a designer with credits at Porsche, GM and Aston Martin.
Working at these big companies,
he'd looked around and see enthusiasts tracking cars
like the M3 and saw an opening.
We could see there was a need for people
to have a vehicle that they could drive fast
but not necessarily on the road.
In 1991, Simon founded Solocrest Ltd in Crewkerne,
Somerset, England.
As a small company,
Solocrest wasn't bound by the same regulations
as the big ones.
So they could let their imaginations run wild.
There you go imaginations run around.
- [Man 1] Oh, what?
Is that the sun?
- [Man 2] Oh, is this grass?
- [Man 3] look at all this space.
Let's run wild, wee!
- Simon built the firm from six employees to 30 and in 1999,
he saw an opportunity to associate Solocrest with one
of England's legendary motoring brands
and change the name thus began
the aerial Motors that we know today.
(engine revving)
Chapter three the cars in quotation marks.
The new Ariel is best known for the Atom.
I mean, look at this fricking thing.
It's extremely lightweight because it's barely even a car.
Its chassis acts as an exoskeleton
and there's no weight that isn't absolutely necessary.
The first model launched in the year 2000,
five years after Post Malone was born and the current model,
the Atom Four uses a direct injection turbo charge K20C
Honda motor which is the same engine as the Civic Type-R
but while a Civic Type-R weighs about 3,000 pounds,
the Atom Four weighs 1,349.
It makes up to 365 horsepower with 310 pound feet
of torque and does zero
to 60 in 2.8 seconds if you can shift fast enough.
Yeah, cause that's right, man.
It's a fricking manual.
(engine revving)
People who've driven them say
that even more impressive than the speed, is the handling.
Since there's basically no weight moving laterally,
there's almost no body roll and the level
of precision obviously goes up
when you can just look at your fricking wheels
and right behind the driver is a giant air intake
that'll suck your face into the engine
after it's ripped off by the car.
So let's say you're a person that wants one.
You're not gonna go to Barry's Used Ariel lot.
You're gonna call Ariel directly and a concierge
who in my imagination is played by Colin Firth,
will ask you everything they need
to know to customize your Atom.
- What break options do you need?
Do you want double adjustable dampers?
How tall is your body?
Is this your daily driver
that you're going to take your kid to school in?
- But if this will be your track car
there are also track specific models and for the money,
an Atom is surprisingly practical
for racing since the reduced weight will mean less wear
on expendable parts like tires and brake pads.
They start at 75 grand so they're not cheap
but when you buy one, you're getting something
that is pound for pound more powerful
than a Ferrari Enzo for $600,000 less.
If you could even find a fricking Enzo
but let's say you call your charming concierge named Colin
and you say Colin, I wanna take my Atom in the dirt.
- Well sir, then you don't want an Atom, you want a Nomad.
- The nomad is Ariel's off-road model
that uses their exoskeleton design
to create something between a track car and an ATV.
It uses the legendary naturally aspirated 2.4 liter Honda
K24 motor and if naturally aspirated ain't your jam,
you can option it with a big old blower
to make 300 horsepower.
Like the Atom,
that's on top of being incredibly light, 1,700 pounds.
It's also fully customizable and
that includes the suspension
where there are several options
but all of them obviously have a ton of travel and a ton
of suspension travel means a ton of jumps.
It comes in two models,
the sport trim and the tactical which adds a light bar,
a winch, a rear sump guard and a spare wheel.
Just think about what-
- [Woman] Name withheld.
Would say if he saw me with one of these,
he'd be like hey James,
sorry for beating you up your senior year in high school.
Can I get a ride in your nomad?
I'd be like kick rocks.
- [Woman] Oops.
- Eat my sand.
Yeah-
- [Woman] Sorry.
- I still remember.
Please don't find out where I live and beat me up again
and if the Nomad looks familiar to you,
that's probably because you saw it in the trailer for Dirt
5 and you know what else is in that trailer?
A fricking Mustang with the Donut logo and all
of our shows on it.
That's right, Donut is in Dirt 5
but you probably already knew that
but what you didn't know is that I am also in Dirt 5,
my voice anyway, not my actual person.
A few months ago, Codemasters hit us up and they were like,
- Oi mate, you wanna be in a new video game?
- And we were like yes, yes,
we definitely, we would definitely love
to be in a video game.
- Oh my God!
- In the game, we host the dirt podcast
by Donut Media and not to toot our pretty little horns
but we kinda moved the entire story along,
we're an integral part to the game.
It's awesome.
What's also awesome is we got to work with some
of the biggest voice actors on the planet
like Nolan North and Troy Baker.
Nolan was nerding out super hard.
It was really, really cute.
- Oh my God!
- I can truly say this is a racing game
by racing game fans for racing game fans
and we are super stoked,
not even stoked,
blown away that we were given this opportunity
and I think you guys are really gonna like it.
Dirt 5 launches from October on PC,
next gen and current gen consoles.
To pre-order the game and learn more about it,
Go to the link in the description below.
Guys, we did it.
We're in a freaking video game.
Now back to the show.
- Chapter four,
after you've made some
of the craziest most insane car things ever,
where do you go in the future?
Ariel is definitely known
as a wacky exo car company and you might've forgotten
that Ariel actually started as a motorcycle company.
That's why in 2014, they came out with the Ariel Ace,
their first bike in 47 years.
Like the aerial cars, the Ace is made to order.
So it's very customizable.
You can choose the controls.
You can choose the suspension, the fuel tank, the wheels,
the grinder fork, mud guard, the instrument panel.
You can choose freaking everything and also like the cars,
the Ace uses a Honda engine,
specifically the 1,237 CC unicam V4
that makes 173 horsepower on a fricking motorbike.
Now, unlike the Atom,
it's not built to rival the fastest competition.
With the Ace,
Ariel focused on personalization instead
of just outright speed.
If you want a bike that can outrun an airplane,
you should go get a different motorcycle.
(engine revving)
So, what's next?
After getting rid of the doors, windows,
radios and assembly lines, next Ariel is getting rid of gas.
I know somebody else who's getting rid of gas.
In 2017 they announced the Hipercar with an I,
which stands for High Performance Carbon Reduction.
This thing is gonna have four individual electric motors,
one at every wheel for a grand total of,
are you ready for this?
1,180 horsepower and we're talking about
that much horsepower
with Ariel's extremely lightweight design.
So word on the street is they got a zero to 60 time
of 2.4 seconds.
That is so, I don't even understand how that would work.
The bare chassis has been seen
but the full body only exists right now
in concept art and the dreams of little boys like me.
They plan to reveal the final product
at the Low Carbon Auto Show
in September in the United Kingdom.
So by the end of the year,
we'll know what we can expect from these absolute maniacs.
Everyone tweet at Ariel and let them know
that James Pumphrey from Donut Media wants
to have his face ripped off.
If you're new to Donut, welcome a board.
It's a fun place.
It's a fun crowd.
You're among good people.
Hit that subscribe button and the notification bell.
We're gonna be in a video game.
That is a huge, huge thing for me.
If you wanna watch more sciency stuff,
like I said, check out this episode of Bumper to Bumper.
Check out this episode of Money Pit
where my buddy Zach is building a Miata.
I love you.