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Written by Rowan Horncastle
In the UK there are many sheds. In some of these sheds are plucky people ambitiously building their own lightweight, track-focused sports cars. We"ve been at it for years: Caterham, BAC and Ariel are all British success stories. Now America wants a slice of the single-seater street-legal track car pie with this, the Vandal One. Let"s just all agree now that it looks proper. Vandal"s teamsheet of employees includes former McLaren, Lotus, Lola, and Mazda engineers. Using all this nous, clever engineering tactics and hardware seen on high-end motorsport cars, the One is a serious bit of kit. The whole car is built around a carbon monocoque and flat carbon fibre front and rear floor sections that also serve as aerodynamic members. Sitting behind the driver is the same turbocharged Civic Type R engine from Honda that Ariel recently dropped into the Atom 4. But where the Atom test car we drove had three power maps of 220bhp, 290bhp and 320bhp, the Vandal is available in a base spec of 340bhp, and R" spec with a slightly preposterous 560bhp at 9,000 rpm with push-to-pass in a car that only weighs 555kg. So quick maths that"s significantly more power than the Atom in something that weighs less. Considering what an Atom does to your face at full-throttle, this might be a plastic surgeon"s worst nightmare. Or best friend.
Date written: 14 Feb 2019
More of this article on the Top gear website
ID: 14844
In the UK there are many sheds. In some of these sheds are plucky people ambitiously building their own lightweight, track-focused sports cars. We"ve been at it for years: Caterham, BAC and Ariel are all British success stories. Now America wants a slice of the single-seater street-legal track car pie with this, the Vandal One. Let"s just all agree now that it looks proper. Vandal"s teamsheet of employees includes former McLaren, Lotus, Lola, and Mazda engineers. Using all this nous, clever engineering tactics and hardware seen on high-end motorsport cars, the One is a serious bit of kit. The whole car is built around a carbon monocoque and flat carbon fibre front and rear floor sections that also serve as aerodynamic members. Sitting behind the driver is the same turbocharged Civic Type R engine from Honda that Ariel recently dropped into the Atom 4. But where the Atom test car we drove had three power maps of 220bhp, 290bhp and 320bhp, the Vandal is available in a base spec of 340bhp, and R" spec with a slightly preposterous 560bhp at 9,000 rpm with push-to-pass in a car that only weighs 555kg. So quick maths that"s significantly more power than the Atom in something that weighs less. Considering what an Atom does to your face at full-throttle, this might be a plastic surgeon"s worst nightmare. Or best friend.
Date written: 14 Feb 2019
More of this article on the Top gear website
ID: 14844
