Ariel Atom 3

First impressions

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It's the middle of November, the temperature is hovering around the five-degrees Celsius mark and there's an intermittent drizzle of rain. Not quite the best of days to be testing the new Ariel Atom 3 then, because this no-nonsense road racer doesn't even have a windscreen, never mind doors or a roof. I'm quite well prepared, though; I had the foresight to bring a helmet, gloves, a waterproof coat and a flask of tea to bring me back to life. But when I see the skeletal Atom parked up, two seats, a steering wheel and the most basic collection of controls ever, I begin to realise that testing this car today wasn't the wisest decision I've ever made.

However, I'm not about to wimp out now. Getting into the Atom is relatively simple; step on the seat, slide your feet into the footwell, lower yourself into position and buckle the simple harness. Once in place it's amazing how wide the Atom feels, a sense that is heightened by the open-wheel design and the thick metal poles that basically hold this car together, interlaced with nothing but air. Behind you is a huge sucking air vent, and below that the engine, a Honda Civic Type-R engine that has been cranked up to 245bhp. We are in for some fun today!
This is actually the new car, although spotting the changes takes a keener eye than mine. Apparently the chassis has been completely rebuilt making it stiffer than before. It has also been widened to give a bit more shoulder room in the cabin, and the dampers are now adjustable to allow you to set it up perfectly for track and road use.
Performance

Thumb the big starter button and the Atom doesn't bark, pop and beat its chest like a Caterham R400 (look out for a twin test very soon). The noise is really flat and civilised, actually. We edge out of the Ariel car park, and the car's controls (throttle, steering, gear shift) are all light and friendly so there is no lurching and hopping like you get in a lot of cars of this ilk. It's still a bit damp, so we take it easy for the first few miles until we hit some hilly roads that are a bit drier and open the taps.

Within an instant my brain has been turned into scrambled egg and we're warping across the Somerset countryside like a low-flying fighter jet. Bury your foot in any gear and the engine responds instantly; I now understand why no supercar would stand a chance against an Atom across roads like these. The sound, too, changes into a deep roar that reverberates off your chest when you bite into the Honda engine's Vetec power band. I can't quite comprehend how stupendously fast this car is - and this is the slow one. There's a supercharged version as well.

Infiniti FX-50

First Impressions

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Does the name Infiniti mean anything at all to you? Nissan has gambled that within the next year it will make a big impact. It's been around for some 20 years as the luxury arm of the Japanese manufacturer, with sales largely confined to the US. They don't even sell Infiniti in Japan.
Now the cars are coming to Europe, and though the UK launch seems to keep sliding back, the cars are promised by early summer 2009. The marketing tack seems to have changed too. The impression that Infiniti is to Nissan what Lexus is to Toyota - with the emphasis on luxury and quality to tackle the German brands - has been superseded by the highlighting of the performance aspects of Infiniti.

There's good reason. The smallest engine currently on offer in any Infiniti - G27, a 3-Series-sized saloon, the Q5-baiting EX37 SUV and the giant FX- is a 3.7 V6 with 316bhp. The FX also gets a 385bhp V8. These are hardly the specifications anyone would dream up at this time of global financial crisis, but there is a ray of encouragement in the form of a new 3.0-litre turbodiesel that has just been launched in the Renault Laguna Coupe. The saloon won't get it though.
This FX is selling very well in states where fuel costs are less of an issue; the Russians love it, apparently. And it does look pretty damn good. Lower than any rival 4x4, there's a long curvaceous bonnet and swooping passenger compartment to make this a stand out machine. The interior is equally tantalising, real gentleman's club ambience and comfort.
Performance

The FX is, surprisingly, something of lightweight for an SUV. Weighing in at around two tonnes, it uses aluminium panels to help keep the weight down and the performance up. With its long bonnet and the front wheels pushed well forward, it looks fast even at the kerbside. And quick it certainly is. The 5.0-litre V8 is eager and responsive, and you just need to floor the throttle to get instant V8 excitement.
The engine revs to 6,800rpm and the variable valve time encourages you to make full use of the rev range. The seven-speed auto is terrific, within a sport mode that hangs onto gears longer and predicts downchanges before you do. There are also some fancy magnesium paddle shifts behind the steering wheel, and these are a real pleasure to use too.

Bugatti Veyron

That’s perhaps disappointing if you want to brag to your pedantic gazillionaire pals that your car’s packing over 1000bhp. Until you realise that 1001hp is a minimum figure, set in the worst conditions. To be sure it never produces less than its claimed output, Bugatti quietly suggesting the mighty 8.0-litre, 16-cylinder engine actually develops around 1050hp, or 1035bhp to you and me. And that’s plenty. It’s enough to make this carbon-fibre machine produce some scarcely believable figures. On the way to that headline 253mph top speed it’ll reach 62mph in just 2.5 seconds, 124mph in 7.3 seconds and 186mph in 16.7 seconds.
To put those figures into perspective, the last really fast car I drove was Ferrari’s 599 GTB Fiorano. Hardly a slouch, the 599 reaches 62mph in 3.7 seconds and 124mph in 11 seconds. But drive the Ferrari 599 past a stationary Veyron at 62mph during its 11 second 124mph sprint and the Bugatti will catch up by the time the Italian reaches 124mph. From a standing start. That’s performance that’s difficult to comprehend, and I’ve just had my first taste of it. I’m not in the driving seat yet, Bugatti’s ‘Pilote officiel’ Pierre-Henri Raphanel taking the wheel to familiarise me with it prior to swapping seats for a while.
Mind-blowing
He pins the accelerator on the first straight stretch of road outside the Molsheim plant. The effect is absolutely extraordinary. I’ve never felt acceleration like it. It literally takes a second or two for my brain to comprehend what’s going on. The trees lining the typical French country road blur into a solid tunnel of foliage, the Veyron pulling me into my seat with the sort of violence a parachutist feels when pulling the rip-cord. Any attempt at remaining calm is lost when the Veyron does its party trick. I’m left both giggling like a schoolboy and swearing like a trooper, the expletives unconsciously yelled out in utter amazement.

Hummer H3

First impressions

Sick of the humdrum? Then you need a Hummer. The Arnie-mobile is now officially on sale in the UK and what's more, like the actor-turned-politician, it's now right on. As in, right-hand-drive, right-sized for UK, and right-priced, too. Yours for £26,495, and enjoying the full marketing support of the mighty GM UK, it's now more viable than it has ever been. Well, as viable as a big petrol-engined SUV can be in these ecologically-enlightened times. That bit is not quite so right-on. But as Hummer rightfully points out, it's like nothing else. Righting the planet is not why you'll buy an H3. At least, as we'll see, not yet.

H1 and H2 Hummers are massive behemoths that won't even fit in a UK parking bay. This H3 will, though. What's more, onlookers will no longer flee in terror when they see you. Oh, sure, they'll still gawp; with all that chrome, the distinctively square-set profile and the sort of ground clearance that allows Labradors to gallop beneath, they can't fail to. But militaristic might has been civilianised. You'll no longer see one on the road and fear a coup. You may even admire the chrome detailing, the moodily-shallow windows, the Meccano-look underpinnings. Will you from behind the wheel, though?
Performance

Hummer doesn't yet offer a diesel H3. It will do in time, but for now it's a 3.7-litre five-cylinder petrol, producing 244bhp and 241lb/ft of torque. These are decent stats for the class, if not for such a large engine. And fittingly, Hummer only quotes off-road performance stats; there are no acceleration times available. So what's the subjective impression? The parpy-sounding powerplant is raucous during acceleration, still there but less offensive at a cruise. Lift off the throttle and, in our test four-speed auto, the revs drop appreciably, before zapping back up when you apply the throttle; you notice this most because of the vibes it produces.

Citroen C5

First impressions

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Ugh, I thought, when I first saw the old C5. What a missed opportunity. Seven years on, no such mistakes with this one. Hitting showrooms in April, Citroen's big new Mondeo challenger is yet another design highlight in the burgeoning large family car sector. Who said it was dead? So it was me, oohing, when I first saw the slim windowline capping gently contoured side panels, the charismatic long front overhang that's so classically Citroen, the delicious concave rear screen with mere hints of flying buttresses. Soft, organic creases abound, contrasting with the sector's identikit German sharpness. This is a luxurious-looking saloon of status. Just like Citroens of yore. Wow supplants ugh.
Performance

The engines are as for the old C5. Forgettable petrol units, which will be replaced by units joint-developed with BMW before long, plus 1.6-litre and 2.0-litre HDi diesels that will sell best. There is also a 2.2-litre HDi, and the Jaguar XF's sexy twin-turbo 2.7-litre V6 diesel that will be a hen's-teeth indulgence. We preferred the smoother 1.6 HDi, which was less throbby than the 2.0 and offered fewer vibrations as you explored the rev range. And with 110bhp against 136bhp it felt negligibly slower too, the hefty tonne and half-plus of weight dulling the vigour of both. Both intruded more than you'd expect ... simply because the rest is so quiet.
Ride and handling

This is where the C5 differs from any rival. If Peugeot's 407 is sporty, the C5, which shares key underpinnings, is its smooth-riding nemesis. That much is apparent in the first 100 yards, where the Citroen's far more relaxed suspension settings waft and glide, rather than chatter about everything the road surface is doing. This is the case even with the standard 'steel-sprung' car. Remarkably, Citroen has tuned conventional suspension to offer the same fluid, relaxed gait as the hydraulic machine, certainly at first. Where it can't quite compare is in isolating occasional harshness from potholes, expansion joints and the like. The wheels can thud and bosh on pot-marked surfaces.

The hydraulic car does this too. Where it differs is in its unique 'floating on air' feel not entirely dissimilar to an old Rolls-Royce. Not everyone likes it but it's worth tuning into it for a totally unique approach that infuses lusciousness like waves. Meanwhile the steering is very light, and very light on feel, but fairly chatty on the limit. If you intelligently compensate for initial roll, double wishbones and multi-link rear systems plant the C5 reassuringly and summon ample grip and bite. Remember, this uses the Peugeot 407's clever front hub, with resulting strong front-end grip. It's not a sporty car but stable, reassuring and easy, just as you'd expect.
Interior

Who says the French can't do tactility? The C5's interior is a fest of quality, intrigue and interest - that is (engines apart) hushed at most speeds like few rivals are. Huge, indulgent seats cosset you from a regally high position, the soft-touch, low-sheen dash pleases the eye and delights the brain with all its many tricks and quirks. Dials, for instance, have floating needles and are set in a cowl like a classic Citroen DS; that fixed-hub steering wheel is delightfully weird, the stack of buttons everywhere surely perfectly intuitive once you've applied the brainwork to learn them. SX, VTR and Exclusive trim lines won't be short of kit, either.

IFR SUPERSPORT

First Impressions

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If you saw our coverage from the British International Motor Show earlier this year you'll know we got rather excited about the IFR Aspid. Excited enough to put it in our top 10 BIMS 'must see' cars, and ... you get the picture.
So having written lots of nice stuff about it in our show coverage and embarked on a sustained campaign of schmoozing and eyelash fluttering (it wasn't a pretty sight) IFR has relented and given us an exclusive early drive in the Aspid. We're not usually so blatant but every now and then it's worth it.

Why the fuss though? Well, it's not hard to see why the Aspid turned heads at ExCel. The open-wheeled styling, carbon fibre bodywork, detachable door hatches and insect-like front lights are all dramatic enough. But that's nothing when you hear about what this car can do.
Like go from 0-100-0mph in nine seconds. Even a Veyron is going to struggle to get anywhere near figures like that. 62mph comes up in a scarcely relevant 2.9 seconds and on the Catalan rally stage roads near IFR's factory the engineers reckon it's faster than a full-on WRC car.
Performance

The Aspid can be had in normally aspirated Sport or supercharged Supersport variants, both using the engine from the Honda S2000. Which, with its screaming 9,000rpm redline and race engine technology, suits the car well. We drove the Supersport, which has a staggering 402hp. In a car weighing 740kg - 200kg less than a Lotus Exige.
Driving through the standard Honda six-speed manual gearbox (it's one of the best there is so why bother changing it?) and sticky track-spec Toyo tyres it simply erupts down the road, the power delivery not unlike that of the aforementioned Exige, which also uses a high-revving, supercharged engine.

It's way faster though. You need to reconfigure your brain to get a handle on just what it's capable of and even then it's shockingly quick. And when you learn that the guys behind it are all ex-rally engineers it begins to make some sort of sense, especially on the twisty mountain roads on which it has been honed.
Veyron-baiting acceleration times are something of a red herring too. Because although the Aspid takes off like it's been fired off the front of an aircraft carrier its performance envelope only really extends up to around 130mph. Supercars will eventually outdrag the Aspid on an autobahn. But on a twisting mountain road nothing is going to get anywhere near it.

Farbio GTS

First impressions

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Is it the new Lotus Eagle? Nope. The much rumoured baby McLaren then? Wrong again. I know - it's that Farboud thing from Project Gotham Racing! Mmm, kind of... Now engineered into production reality, millionaire car nut Arash Farboud's ambitious plan to build a Porsche and Ferrari slaying supercar of his own design has evolved into this, the Farbio GTS. With Farboud now off and indulging his fantasies in new projects the name change underlines quite how much the car has changed since it was first seen in 2004. Let's start from the top. Or actually the bottom...

Farboud's orginal design looked very similar but used an expensive aluminium chassis, F1-style pushrod suspension and a twin-turbo V6 from the first generation Audi RS4. With Ferrari and Porsche in its sights the car was expected to cost north of £100,000 and boast suitably bonkers performance. But when ex-Marcos man Chris Marsh took the project on he realised making the car into a viable production vehicle would require some serious rethinking and a more real world pricetag of £60,000. The finished product looks very similar to the Farboud but uses a much more cost effective steel space frame and carbon body combination, conventional double wishbone suspension and a Ford 3.0-litre V6 engine.
Performance

In the classic mould of small-scale British sports car builders Farbio follows the mantra of less is more. And by making the Farbio as light as possible it has been able to avoid spending lots of money on an expensive and complicated engine to give the necessary performance. As such the Ford V6's 262bhp is good enough to deliver ballistic pace. Extensive use of carbon fibre - all the bodywork is made from the stuff - means a kerbweight of just 1,048kg. That's a couple of hundred kilos more than an Elise but still significantly less than most hot hatches - even a supposedly minimalist Renault Clio 197 Cup weighs around 1,200kg.