The problem with most of today’s supercars is that they’re mostly watered down track cars, used as grand tourers. As general-purpose cars they pretty much suck, and while rather impressive as track cars they get schooled by something like this Atom that costs a fraction of the Italian jobs. By the way, this is no run-of-the-mill shed Atom. This one’s powered by the blog commenter’s wet: The 2.8L Hartley H1 Hayabusa-derived V8. Oh yes…


The seller claims this is the only H1 V8 powered Atom in existence (Ariel’s working on their own version), and the build up is documented on his blog, which we really ought to start reading. It’s got a power-to-weight ratio on par with 70s F1 cars and runs lap times similar to those from the CanAm days.

Unfortunately, the car’s set up to be basically track-only, and the combination of oddball title and oddball engine might back it nearly impossible to register in your local commonwealth. Our suggestion? Just start racing for pinks at the local track, eventually you’ll have a nice collection of wannabe track cars to drive around town.

Bidding’s at $60k on eBay Motors, via Webrides.tv
We got the pictures from the eBay auction, but the watermark suggests you should go check out Xqsme Photography