About

The Nomad is a car that, logically, should not exist. It has no doors and the gaps in the frame that you feed yourself through have been designed without reference to human anatomy. Your passengers, if you should find anyone foolish enough to accept a lift to the pub, will spend the evening picking flies out of their teeth or mud from their ears according to season, and then opt to walk home. It has zero load space (that cubby hole under the bonnet that fills with water does not count), the fuel tank is half the size it should be to get between adjacent filling stations, and it has a turning circle bigger than an HGV, unless you use the hydraulic handbrake.

Fortunately Ariel don't care about any of that because they know cars are not just about transportation, unless in some whimsical flight of nonsense we include transportation of the spirit. The Nomad is designed to entertain. The guy who pulls alongside in his svelte greyhound of a supercar may look at it disdainfully over his sunglasses, but the essence of the Nomad is that it's not a symbol of wealth and power, it's just a good laugh.

The entertainment comes from a combination of unreasonable speed, telepathic handling and bouncy suspension. It's the suspension that makes the Nomad different. It stands high and happily rolls as it corners, and that's the revelation - roll is fine, and fun, as long as the car tells you exactly what it's doing. And the ground clearance lets us drive the rough and muddy back roads at a pace that would be just painful in anything else.

So yes, it is a just a toy for someone who never grew up, but it's a toy that has let us explore the indirect route, and this website shares some of our discoveries.