RE: Ariel Atom 500 Will Cost £120,000
Discussion
P4ROT said:
I know everyone else has said it before but how can they justify 70k+ over the 300 for a v8 version??
I expect the engine is around £25k. Add £5k for transmission (over and above that used on the 300) and another £5k for off the shelf suspension components and various other bits including new brakes (again, o&a that used on the 300). That's £35k. The other £35k per car is probably development time and effort (this car might need a new and different chassis designing, it'll need different engine mounts, probably wishbones etc etc. Given that they're not making many cars, once you knock the VAT off that and look at the salaries of the 3 or 4 people that Ariel employ, the maths can be made to work quite easily. If I was strapping myself into a 1000bhp/tonne Atom I'd like to know that a decent amount of development had been done!RobM77 said:
P4ROT said:
I know everyone else has said it before but how can they justify 70k+ over the 300 for a v8 version??
I expect the engine is around £25k. Add £5k for transmission (over and above that used on the 300) and another £5k for off the shelf suspension components and various other bits including new brakes (again, o&a that used on the 300). That's £35k. The other £35k per car is probably development time and effort (this car might need a new and different chassis designing, it'll need different engine mounts, probably wishbones etc etc. Given that they're not making many cars, once you knock the VAT off that and look at the salaries of the 3 or 4 people that Ariel employ, the maths can be made to work quite easily. If I was strapping myself into a 1000bhp/tonne Atom I'd like to know that a decent amount of development had been done!RobM77 said:
k-ink said:
Re: bikes... The only place you could take advantage of 877 over 700 bhp/tonne would be on a drag strip in ideal blistering heat.
True, but my first point remains. Bikes are just different from cars. Your argument holds up against any car costing more than £10k really! The reason people buy £20-30k Caterhams and Exiges etc instead of bikes is that cars offer a totally different experience to bikes. All the physics is just completely different.In all fairness, at least ariel have done it the right way around, ie build a cheaper car, and once that has general approval/a cult following and the name carries weight, think about challenging the 6 figure market.
It's these funny little companies you seem to hear about every other week that pop out of nowhere from some nowhere country and announce a new sportscar thats going to cost $250,000 more than the yankee V8 powering it and expect people are going to want it instead of a ferrari/lambo/aston etc, that make me laugh.
It's these funny little companies you seem to hear about every other week that pop out of nowhere from some nowhere country and announce a new sportscar thats going to cost $250,000 more than the yankee V8 powering it and expect people are going to want it instead of a ferrari/lambo/aston etc, that make me laugh.
k-ink said:
RobM77 said:
k-ink said:
Re: bikes... The only place you could take advantage of 877 over 700 bhp/tonne would be on a drag strip in ideal blistering heat.
True, but my first point remains. Bikes are just different from cars. Your argument holds up against any car costing more than £10k really! The reason people buy £20-30k Caterhams and Exiges etc instead of bikes is that cars offer a totally different experience to bikes. All the physics is just completely different.k-ink said:
RobM77 said:
k-ink said:
Re: bikes... The only place you could take advantage of 877 over 700 bhp/tonne would be on a drag strip in ideal blistering heat.
True, but my first point remains. Bikes are just different from cars. Your argument holds up against any car costing more than £10k really! The reason people buy £20-30k Caterhams and Exiges etc instead of bikes is that cars offer a totally different experience to bikes. All the physics is just completely different.
I mean, I paid over £20k for an Elise just to experience good steering feel and chassis feedback, which I couldn't get with a £1k MR2 - and if you reduce it like that is really just a bunch of vibrations! You could say in the same light that £50 for an hour and a half of music at a big gig at Wembley is a rip off when for £10 you can buy a CD that lasts forever. 
If you're just after speed and the feeling of speed then for sure, a bike is amazing value for money. However, if like me, slip angles, the limit, cornering, braking and all of that is what you love, cars and bikes seem very different indeed. Which someone prefers is up to their own preferences of course, but it's just the way it is that cars do usually cost a lot more than bikes.
Edited by RobM77 on Saturday 14th November 14:18
blearyeyedboy said:
Justayellowbadge said:
Talksteer said:
Bugatti have made 200 Veyrons, if that figure were true that would mean that they had spent £760 million on the design development and production of those 200 Veyrons. I suspect that is highly unlikely.
That figure doesn't seem unlikely to me.VAG spent 150 Million developing their DSG gearbox.
There is no way in hell that you would allow a project to make you a loss of that magnitude while still hitting your sales targets. It would become apparent that you were going to make a massive loss at about the time in the program when the development costs alone were costing more than the total sales of vehicles were going to cover. At this point VW would have cut their losses and run.
Likewise if the car was costing more to make than it was selling for only an idiot would keep on producing them.
They only way you usually see huge losses on a car project is when you fail to sell enough of them, the Veyron has so far sold 200 models and should hit the original sales target of 300 sometime in 2010.
....they just can't fit in this little bonkers 
....helluva piece of machine nevertheless peterattheboro said:
I understand the amount of work which has gone into this but still, £120,000 is a hell of a lot of money for some scaffolding and a V8 engine.
I'm sure some clever geeky car type could build a similar car for a quarter of the price?
One already exsists my friend, Ultima GTR640 - £68,000. Not quite a quarter but nearly half, Check out its stats @EVO! Can't imagine the Ariel's performance would be much more!I'm sure some clever geeky car type could build a similar car for a quarter of the price?
Talksteer said:
blearyeyedboy said:
Justayellowbadge said:
Talksteer said:
Bugatti have made 200 Veyrons, if that figure were true that would mean that they had spent £760 million on the design development and production of those 200 Veyrons. I suspect that is highly unlikely.
That figure doesn't seem unlikely to me.VAG spent 150 Million developing their DSG gearbox.
There is no way in hell that you would allow a project to make you a loss of that magnitude while still hitting your sales targets. It would become apparent that you were going to make a massive loss at about the time in the program when the development costs alone were costing more than the total sales of vehicles were going to cover. At this point VW would have cut their losses and run.
Likewise if the car was costing more to make than it was selling for only an idiot would keep on producing them.
They only way you usually see huge losses on a car project is when you fail to sell enough of them, the Veyron has so far sold 200 models and should hit the original sales target of 300 sometime in 2010.
"Bugatti is saying that Veyron production started last week, after six years of setbacks and nearly $400 million in investment (an amount not likely to be recovered by selling 300 cars)."
Source: http://www.autoblog.com/2005/09/12/bugatti-starts-...
Why does it cost so much? Well, making a car go fast is relatively easy, but as I'll let Jeremy Clarkson quote:
“God, it was hard,” said one of the engineers I know vaguely. “The gearbox in an F1 car only has to last a few hours. Volkswagen wanted the Veyron’s to last 10 or 20 years. And remember, the Bugatti is a damn sight more powerful than any F1 car.”
Source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/driving/jeremy_cl...
It's not going to make a profit unless the production run is cranked up by quite some way. It's financially stupid for VAG to do, but they did it anyway.
toppstuff said:
tuffer said:
THAT ENGINE DESERVES ITS OWN THREAD !!!
Sorry to shout, but look at that engine. That is fantastic.
Imagine that in a Evora, or a Farbio, maybe an Exige. Would be my perfect car.
Website www.h1v8.com has some really interesting stuff on the development of the engine, the different prototypes and the first version that was tested in a Caterham 7. It revs to over 10,000 rpm !
Essentially, in spirit, the design is that of two Suzuki Hyabusa engines to form a V8. Its patented too.
Edited by toppstuff on Thursday 12th November 14:47
peterattheboro said:
£25,000 - http://pistonheads.com/sales/1062916.htm
No idea how much an engine is, £5000-£10000?
Should come in way below £120,000.
And while you are fiddling, you have enough money left over to strap on some forced induction
Now THAT would be fun!
$16000 for a 1028hp 454? http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1028-HP-Blower-572-...No idea how much an engine is, £5000-£10000?
Should come in way below £120,000.
And while you are fiddling, you have enough money left over to strap on some forced induction
Now THAT would be fun!
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