Britain's ultra-light weight sports cars go head-to-head

​Open to the elements in a trio of sporting oddities – is this going to be more like driving cars or riding bikes?
John Calne|Autocar13 January 2017

Three of a kind. Well, kind of a kind. Here we are in a trio of open-top cars, any of which will guarantee you an audience. And, at this time of year, a cold.

We’re heading for Wales, as you do, where it’s going to be wet and some of the roads are going to be loose and muddy. Sounds like the ideal place for an Ariel Nomad – which, next to the Caterham Seven 310R and Morgan 3 Wheeler, looks like a Dakar racer.

It goes like one, too, especially in the aforementioned grubby conditions. Its supercharged 2.5-litre engine fires it like a rocket down the rough Welsh backroads, its suspension keeping it in perfect trim as the surface hammers away at its wheels.

That’s what £5000’s worth of optional Ohlins race shocks does for you. It stops as well as it goes, it handles like a synapse in your brain and it fits perfectly down these narrow little lanes. It’s an incredible thing to drive, one in which every minute is simply incredible fun.

It also has a proper windscreen, which is qualifies as a luxury. A proper windscreen with proper wipers and even a demister. Who needs a Range Rover, huh?

Silly as that sounds, the Nomad feels like a Range Rover next to the Morgan 3 Wheeler. This has heated seats but a completely open cabin, and with its 2.0-litre V-twin engine ranting away it’s kind of like being aboard a motorbike.

Said V-twin is vibe-happy at tickover, but once up and running it calms down and chunters away happily to itself. It pulls very nicely and lets you enjoy the surprisingly tidy handling of a car with one wheel at the back, its steering rewarding your efforts with a lightness and precision of touch.

Rain is a drawback, though. Not so much because of any lack of grip, but because the windscreen, if it can be called that, quickly turns into something that impedes your view rather than aiding it. So we settle for having our fun at lower speeds than we’d normally be aiming for – which is fine, as it turns out, because if there was ever a car designed to be entertaining at 55mph or so it’s this.

The Caterham Seven 310R, you fancy, will want to go faster. It’s a little heavier but a lot more powerful than the Morgan – it still doesn’t match the Nomad’s power-to-weight ratio, but on those same grotty roads its capacity for sideways fun is just hilarious.

Its ability to launch itself forward is pretty smile-worthy, too. Some cars just surge ahead, but the Caterham accelerates with all the drama you desire, its 1.6-litre engine striking a very enjoyable balance between reassuring manageability and nutter-level fun. And if that sounds good, just wait until the first corner – where the genuinely incredible steering that is a Caterham trademark will weld itself to your consciousness.

You remember your first corner in a Caterham the same way you remember the first time you heard Bohemian Rhapsody. There really is nothing else like it.

Though in some ways there is. Because these are three of a kind, remember? Three of a wet, wild, raw kind that’s cold, muddy and utterly, utterly exhilarating to drive. The worse the roads got, the more fun it all became.

And the more engaged with the world around us we were, too. In this way, any of these three bears a similarity to being astride a motorbike. So yes, we have three of a kind. A kind you can’t compare to anything else – but which is almost incomparably good fun.

Ariel Nomad Supercharged

Price £44,168
Engine 4 cyls, 2345cc, supercharged, petrol
Power 300bhp at 7000rpm
Torque 251lb ft at 5500rpm
Gearbox 6-spd manual
Kerb weight 675kg
0-60mph 3.2sec
Top speed 136mph

Caterham Seven 310R

Price £28,990
Engine 4 cyls, 1595cc, petrol
Power 152bhp at 7000rpm
Torque 124lb ft at 5600rpm
Gearbox 6-spd manual
Kerb weight 540kg 0-60mph 4.9secs
Top speed 126mph

Morgan 3 Wheeler

Price £31,800 Engine V2, 1983cc, petrol
Power 82bhp at 5250rpm
Torque 103lb ft at 3250rpm
Gearbox 5-spd manual
Kerb weight 525kg (dry)
0-62mph 6.0sec
Top speed 115mph

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