26 Jun 09
Simon Saunders
In the latest in our Meet the Maker series, we speak to Simon Saunders, Managing Director of Ariel Motor Company.
What was your first car?
I had lots of motorbikes before I had a car (I lived in London) but my first car was an E Type Jaguar 3.8 coupe. The petrol crisis of the day meant that they were 'undesirable' and you could barely give the things away. I de-bumpered it, sprayed it black and it would do the magic 150mph down the Sidcup by-pass. I later swapped it for a bike and the guy never collected the Jag. The council put a sticker on it and then took it away...
What's the car that makes you most proud and why?
Obviously the Atom. The fact that we can outperform cars costing two, five and ten times as much is an enormous achievement for a small manufacturer like us but really the thing that pleases us most is watching a customer's smile when they pick up their new car. As a designer you can't set out to produce an icon, but with the Atom we have.
The Ariel Atom
What's the highest point in Ariel's history?
We like to be reliable, whether it's the car, its components, the company or the people here so I think it is more the steady growth of the company, the performance, reliability and safety of the car over the years rather than one single event. We have won the Autocar 0-100-0mph on three occasions, the only race championship we entered (in 2004-2005), various awards and hold some daft records such as fastest production car indoors so there are lots of interesting individual pinnacles. As a small British company I hope that we are also flying the flag as well as representing the old Ariel and James Starley who founded the original Ariel in 1870.
The lowest point?
I'm not sure that there has been a lowest point. Making cars, of any description is incredibly hard. Aside from the day-to-day difficulties of running any company, a car is the most complex consumer product there is and certainly the most difficult to design. It has to take into account engineering, aesthetics, fashion, safety, enormous amounts of legislation, complex costs and in our case very, very high performance plus all that comes with that. There certainly were some long and painful hours during the design and prototype stages of the original car but since the first Atom production car it has all been positive.
Which automotive development do you wish you'd thought of?
The wheel would be a good Patent to have.
