Ariel Offers an Atom PL for Police Work
Being a policeman in the UK suddenly seems like a very good job. Ariel, makers of the Atom, a street-legal supercharged track toy, just offered one of their cars to the municipalities of Avon and Somerset for promotional uses.
Based on the completely mad 3.5R, the one-off vehicle is called the Atom PL, and features emergency lights mounted on the engine cowl, a siren and a police livery. The mechanical parts of the car are standard Ariel Atom: a 2 litre supercharged Honda engine producing 350 HP mated to the rear wheels through a sequential gearbox actuated by pneumatic paddle-shifters. This enables the police officers to shift gears in less than 400 milliseconds, on their way to a top speed of over 250 km/h.
Considering the whole car only weighs 550 kg, it is ridiculously fast, hitting 100 from a standstill in 2.6 seconds, faster than pretty much everything else on the road.
Ariel offered this car to the constabulary forces to promote motorcycle safety. They will launch their very first two-wheeled vehicle soon, and they want to remind people that there is a time and place for extreme speed. On the streets, it is a very bad idea to try to find your vehicle's limits!
