► Ariel and Honda renew engine deal
► 1500 Honda-engined Ariels later…
► Latest news from Crewkerne
Ariel has renewed its contract with Honda to continue supplying high-revving Japanese engines for its range of high-performance British sports cars.
The two firms have been in cahoots for 16 years and Ariel says it has just built its 1500th model powered by a Honda motor.
It’s an exclusive contract and no other engines are supplied to the Crewkerne factory in Somerset.
The Honda engines that make Ariels so bonkers
Honda UK supplies two engines to Ariel: a 2.0-litre four-pot from the Civic Type R for the Atom (available in 245bhp, 310bhp or 350bhp configurations) and the Civic’s 2.4 for the off-road Nomad. And the new Ace motorbike uses a Honda V4 1237cc bike engine, too.
Ariel’s founder Simon Saunders comments: ‘Our customers are hugely passionate about driving so the engine is everything. When we tell new customers that it’s a Honda they simply nod and move on to the next question. They just know that it works.
‘Switching to Honda engines is one of the best decisions that we’ve ever made. It’s a brand that can’t be matched for performance and bulletproof reliability and we’re delighted that this success is set to continue well into the future.’
Each Ariel takes the eight staff between 100-200 hours to make.
Click here to see what happened when we tested the Ariel Nomad off-road!
