Detour #316: 500 Miles in an Ariel Nomad, France

Ben Barry drives 500 miles to one of France’s most scenic cities – in one of Britain’s craziest cars.

Le Puy-en-Velay is a small, historic French city in the heart of the Auvergne Rhône-Alpes region. Folkestone, meanwhile, is a large, historic (technically it is) English town in the anus of Kent, best known as the fastest way to Europe by car. There are 500 miles between the two and I currently find myself keen to leave the latter and arrive in the former.

Distances such as these routinely melt beneath the wheels of long-striding estate cars and super-refined SUVs, which is precisely why I’m taking something a little more primal – the new Ariel Nomad 2, in the simplest terms an off-road buggy derived from Somerset-based Ariel’s Atom track car.

Despite looking much like the original model that launched in 2016, almost everything is new for this second-generation Nomad, including its now-chunkier tubular steel chassis and 2.3-litre Ford turbo engine.

Fresh off an early Eurotunnel crossing and into France, I’m already grinning—and perhaps grimacing just a little—as elements bluster around the Nomad’s open sides. With the latticework tubing and roofless cockpit, it’s hardly a cocoon in here but the windscreen filters out the vast majority of the bluster – not to mention at-times pretty heavy rain. And with driving gloves, beanie hat, goggles and jacket, I’m pretty well insulated.

Initial miles breeze by on smooth northern French autoroutes before I skirt around Paris on the A16, ducking through tunnels, dodging the congestion and darting south towards Clermont-Ferrand. Soon the landscape starts shifting, the tedious flatlands of northern France giving way to green hills that ripple toward the horizon, and a road that undulates gently under the Nomad’s sophisticated Ohlins dampers and fat off-road rubber.

Everyone stares, but there’s something highly satisfying in the knowledge you’re brightening people’s day simply by wheeling into view like some cartoon character.

At Clermont-Ferrand I leave the major routes and cut east to Thiers, a medieval town famed for its knives and where careworn buildings cram onto hillsides like lemmings on cliff tops. An hour, a baguette and some knife /leche-vitrine/ later I’m back on the road, heading south on the D906, wending through the beautiful Parc Naturel régional Livradois-Forez.

It's here that my road trip starts to become truly special, the Nomad helping to bring the landscape to life in a way little else on four wheels ever could —I feel the texture of the road beneath me, the cooler air that washes in through shadier sections of the route, the warmth of sunshine when it finally pokes its head out from behind the clouds. Driving simply feels more vivid behind this tiny little three-spoke wheel.

Naturally there’s no shortage of urge. The Nomad’s new 2.3-litre Ford turbo lump might be a departure from Ariel’s long-standing Honda screamers, but it better suits this go-anywhere, do-anything brief. Fat torque in the mid-range means I can surf curves without frantic gear changes, and with a hot-hatch baiting 305bhp bundled up in only half the weight, acceleration is borderline absurd in the moments I’m brave enough to explore it.

I roll in to Le Puy-en-Velay just as the last light fades, tucking into some very welcome steak frites at the local Ibis hotel. A quick walk around town after-dark reveals this to be a characterful enough place, with historic streets that bend like an MC Escher painting of impossible staircases – the Nomad is perfectly pint-sized to nip around these parts.

Photo Jean-Pierre Goetz / Unsplash

But it’s only at sunrise that the full magic of Le Puy reveals itself. Volcanic chimneys topped with chapels and statues rise like giant chess pieces, seeming almost otherworldly against the pale morning sky. The Statue Notre-Dame is a highlight, a 22-metre homage to the world’s most famous mother-and-baby created in 1860 from melted down Russian cannons seized in the Crimean War. Perhaps inappropriately, you can even climb a spiral staircase inside the lady of virtue herself, complete with a dizzying panoramic view out over the landscape below.

Those 500 miles to Le Puy have definitely been a road trip to remember, one made all the more unforgettable by the rather brilliant Ariel Nomad.

Words Ben Barry Twitter/X | Instagram
Photography Olgun Kordal

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ROADBOOK

CLASS: NOMAD’s JOURNEY

NAME: ARIEL ACROSS FRANCE

ROUTE: FOLKESTONE to LE PUY

COUNTRY: FRANCE

Distance: 580 Miles

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