Ariel Ace motorbike revealed
Ariel heralds its two-wheeled heritage with an all-new customisable bike
More conventional looking naked option
With 175hp and a 165mph top speed it goes without saying the Ace will be rapid enough to keep up the Ariel tradition but it's deliberately not being pitched as a sports bike. "We looked at an out and out, super lightweight race bike but they are already out there and are so far beyond the abilities of most riders that we took the decision to produce a really fast bike that was easy to ride and within the capabilities of most riders," says Simon Saunders in the press release announcing the Ace. "Our motto is Serious Fun and those two words absolutely encapsulate what the Ace is all about."
Wild design, clever engineering - pure Ariel
As you'd expect given the price and scale of production, the Ace is a much more focused piece of kit and full of the kind of engineering art you'd hope. Ariel claims 70 hours of machining is required for the six main pieces of billet section aluminium that are welded together to create the frame, eccentric bearings at the front meaning tuneable head angles. Fork options include a linkage design or more conventional telescopic ones, Ohlins providing the damping in both cases with the single-sided rear swing arm provided by Pro Link. If you really want to geek out on the full spec and component list knock yourself out by reading the full press release here.
The bike will debut at Goodwood this weekend and small scale production of 100-150 units per year will start in 2015.
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rat bike you'd see at the high beach tea hut ! 
A fully cusomisable, bespoke manufactured car would cost you an awful lot more than this. When you're making something it's not the materials that are generally expensive, it's the tooling and development and that isn't going to be that much less for a bike than a car.
Plus you don't have pretty bodywork hanging over to hide all the ugly bits, almost everything on a bike like this has to be finished to the same standard as just a handful of readily accessible and visible parts on a car.
£20k is cheap.
I wish Ariel luck with this but I struggle to see that there will be sufficient demand. It looks good and I understand why the price is what it is but it's still a lot of money for something that offers little more that a nostalgic name and a bit of rarity!
A fully cusomisable, bespoke manufactured car would cost you an awful lot more than this. When you're making something it's not the materials that are generally expensive, it's the tooling and development and that isn't going to be that much less for a bike than a car.
Plus you don't have pretty bodywork hanging over to hide all the ugly bits, almost everything on a bike like this has to be finished to the same standard as just a handful of readily accessible and visible parts on a car.
£20k is cheap.
Do What? There is no heritage, they just acquired/used the name.
Looks a nice thing to polish as a conversation piece, but as it'll likely be flawed in engineering terms right from the off, I doubt it'll be much good at anything other than posing - that said, that's not held a number of other makes back, so it could sell well!
As for someone comparing it in any way to a Bimota .............. OMG
Looking forward to seeing it in the metal at the FoS.Gassing Station | Biker Banter | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff