Can the Ariel Nomad really be as quick on a gravel stage as a Group N rally car? Two expert drivers join Andrew Frankel at Sweet Lamb in Wales to see. I'd like to claim the idea for myself, but it came from an aside in a conversation about something else entirely with Ariel boss Simon Saunders. He mentioned in passing that while they were testing their Nomad, someone had casually timed its progress over a stage and thought its pace similar to that of a Group N rally car. Had I not known Saunders for many years, I'd have dismissed it as puff, the land of comment we hear quite a lot: a big, improbable claim couched in terms broad enough to offer plausible deniability should anyone ever put it to the test, which of course they never would. Except that's not his style.
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