Separated at Birth · 31 May 06
Over the weekend I tore the rest of the fiberglass and odd parts off of Atom and took a few pictures for posterity.
I was cruising the internet the other day and ran across a cool video and pictures of a little sports car. On further consideration, and with my eyes crossed just so, I thought maybe this was what Atom was originally intended to be?
There’s probably a special torture area reserved in sports car hell for blasphemers like me, but here goes anyways:
Separated at birth: Homemade Atom & the Ariel Atom
Sorry, couldn’t resist. ’:^)
You can click the photos on the left for a full-sized view. It’s not as fun to look at them after the finely engineered lines of the Ariel Atom. It’s an interesting chassis. Not sure what to do with it at this point, but it is very light and easy to push around the yard.
I wonder where the Atom suspension came from. It looks vaguely triumph to me. Some Triumphs e.g. the Herald had such “folding under” rear suspension. So do VW Beetles I think.
Im sure youve seen this, but just in case. www.wrightspeed.com
James, how does the folding rear work? Does it expect to have a certain weight such that the tires toe-in (or out or whatever) properly?
Thanks, Jeff. Here’s another collection of photos/videos for anyone who missed it.
Hi Jerry,
On a triumph the idea is that the rear camber angle changes with the weight / ride height. It has the unfortunate side effect of occasionally causing the wheel to fold over if the weight comes right off the suspension. On the positive side on cornering the outside loadbearing tyre can be sitting up on the road nice and flat when normally it would be on it’s outer shoulder. Not for rally cars, this suspension!