RE: Ariel's boss Simon Saunders

[john lloyd]

benyates said:

As for the easy to do running repairs that day ended on an AA lorry, still nothing hard to fix just have not got round to it yet

I think you should sue Ken Livingston for not getting the pot holes repaired.

If you like watching Atoms here's a great sight of 13 odd going around London.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tw2GL12XDLU

Edited by john lloyd on Wednesday 18th October 23:33

[scoobiewrx]

benyeats said:

I use mine all the time, no such thing as bad weather only bad clothes.

As for the easy to do running repairs that day ended on an AA lorry, still nothing hard to fix just have not got round to it yet

Ben

just digressing a bit, Benny, if ever you're looking for a new job please let me know. I'm always looking for good electronics engineers in Cambridge. Cheers, Francis

[simonrockman]

Dan: nice article.

Thanks.

Simon

[p50boy]

On the Furball 5000 this Summer, There was an Atom driven by Andy and Nick. 27 Cars and this just shone out from the rest,And there was some top cars Ferrari Lambo etc.People would just stop and look till the car was out of sight.And it whent very well to.my clio v6 was no match at all,that trip the atom ticks all the boxes for me .

[bob_defly]

I got a pax ride in one owned by a guy called Ariel! And it was fantastic, by far the best car I think I have ever been in.

[simonrockman]

In the Octane article on Jay Leno's amazing car collection there was a picture of an Atom

[dmc272727]

The Airel Atom was not designed by Saunders but is a rip off from the Coventry University Lightweight concept car designed by students on the Transport Design course for the Motor Show...he was a tutor at the time on the course no more said !...he did design the Tickford Capri thou a classic

[Garlick]

A thread resurrection for that breaking news?

Blimey......

[BCA]

In fairness, he is completely correct.

Nicky Smart was the man with the idea - and he was a top bloke who got totally shafted by Saunders. I have not seen Nicky in almost a decade now, but I hope he has had a very successful career and can just laugh about this now.

[Garlick]

Oh I know, but it's such old news, and as there are 2 other far more recent Atom threads running it was odd to dig this one up.

[skwdenyer]

BCA said:

In fairness, he is completely correct.

Nicky Smart was the man with the idea - and he was a top bloke who got totally shafted by Saunders. I have not seen Nicky in almost a decade now, but I hope he has had a very successful career and can just laugh about this now.

Really? I remember a proposal in Car magazine from at least 15 years ago (couldn't swear to the date without reading a lot of back issues) by Simon Saunders for a 3-wheeled "new Reliant" featuring a 2F1R wheel layout and the very same external skeleton. Did Nicky Smart get "shafted", or did Saunders suggest the exoskeleton idea to his students?

[FNG]

When you're a student I'm afraid you can get thoroughly taken to the cleaners.

Our senior lecturer - a former Longbridge engineer - set us a task looking at redesigning bumpers with a remit of delivering a cheap facelift and better crash performance.

We looked at styling, impact protection and reducing costs (deleting chrome trim, reducing the number of grilles and so on).

What we collectively came up with was pretty much what ended up on the MG ZT.

We remained poor students while our lecturer could suddenly afford to go rallying.

There may have been some link but naturally I can only speculate.

[Chris71]

These are outrageous claims! Crewkerne, normal?

Great to see them doing well.

[skwdenyer]

FNG said:

When you're a student I'm afraid you can get thoroughly taken to the cleaners.

Our senior lecturer - a former Longbridge engineer - set us a task looking at redesigning bumpers with a remit of delivering a cheap facelift and better crash performance.

We looked at styling, impact protection and reducing costs (deleting chrome trim, reducing the number of grilles and so on).

What we collectively came up with was pretty much what ended up on the MG ZT.

We remained poor students while our lecturer could suddenly afford to go rallying.

There may have been some link but naturally I can only speculate.

I'm certainly not saying that it doesn't happen, although in fairness (having been an academic) there is often a demand from students themselves for "real" problems to work on, which is validation enough in itself.

What I was questioning was the time line of the alleged Atom issue.

[ewenm]

A third of my manufacturing engineering postgrad course was devoted entirely to giving companies so free labour to work on problems for them. The students got real life problem experience; the company got motivated, intelligent people to look at a problem for free. Win-win.

Edited by ewenm on Friday 29th May 10:05

[FNG]

skwdenyer said:

I'm certainly not saying that it doesn't happen, although in fairness (having been an academic) there is often a demand from students themselves for "real" problems to work on, which is validation enough in itself.

What I was questioning was the time line of the alleged Atom issue.

Don't get me wrong, we were happy to work on something that felt like it was an authentic engineering task, and fully aware that our lecturer was consulting for Rover.

I don't think one of us was bitter about it - we enjoyed the project and were pleased to see our work taken on and developed further by a car manufacturer - I was just pointing out that these things can and do happen.

At college you're there to learn, not to set the world on fire, so any reaction other than "I'm getting valuable experience and it might open a few doors for me" would be pretty childish IMO.