Only In China: DIY Atom

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

Does this look like the Ariel Atom, the “race car for the road,” you know, the one in which one journalist got killed? It does, but it isn’t. It’s a homemade Atom. Made in China. In a shed.

This is the real Ariel Atom.

This is the daughter of the builder. And the car being built.

Rest of the story with reams of pictures at Carnewschina.com, which documented the building process from raw pipe to finished dream.

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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  • Tekdemon Tekdemon on Jan 07, 2012

    Oh man, I've driven and ridden in some pretty frightening contraptions before...nearly died when I was riding shotgun in a ghetto buggy driving on regular truck-filled roads and a bunch of kids threw water balloons at the driver which distracted him almost enough for us to go flying off the road. This thing actually manages to look even more insanely dangerous. So mad respect for the guy who built it but damned if I'm going anywhere near the sharp sheetmetal covered excuse to kill yourself.

  • Fiasco Fiasco on Jan 07, 2012

    Officially awesome. What class would that thing run in LeMons?

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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