Last year, Melbourne-based firm Lightspeed Motor Company said it had secured the exclusive licence to produce the open-top Ariel Atom and Nomad models locally, creating a manufacturing opportunity for the niche vehicles.
At the time, Lightspeed said it planned to both manufacture and export Ariels from the Victorian capital, with the Asia Pacific market in its sights.
This followed the firm taking more than 4000 expressions of interest for the Atom in late 2023, with excessive wait times spurring the push to build Ariel vehicles locally.
“By producing the Atom and Nomad domestically, Lightspeed will eliminate lengthy delays, reduce costs, deliver a strong return to investors and deliver these iconic machines into the hands of passionate Australian drivers faster and more affordably than ever before,” it said at the time.
However, those plans appear to have been halted, after Torquecafe reader Jay spotted an update on Lightspeed’s website under the title, “Unfortunately, manufacturing in Australia isn’t viable”.
“In early 2025, we secured a 1-year contract with Ariel UK to conduct due diligence on the viability of manufacturing their Ariel Atom 4 and Nomad 2 in Australia for distribution across the AsiaPac region,” Lightspeed’s website says.
“In this time we have discovered some anomalies and barriers regarding the compliance pathways and additionally, issues regarding the ownership and access to necessary product IP. This contract has now lapsed and is not expected to be renewed.
“However, in spite of this, given the wealth of knowledge we have gained through this information gathering and due diligence process we are continuing to explore the prospect of bringing other exciting car products and services to market.”
On the Lightspeed Motors dealership homepage, the company adds that its “ability to supply new cars to the Australian and New Zealand markets is currently on hold”, despite remaining as the “only approved dealer of Ariel Atom 4’s and Ariel Nomad 2’s plus their OEM parts for Australia and New Zealand customers”.
Previously Ariel had partnered with Road and Track as its official dealer in Australia, though this too appears to have ceased.
Though the plans to manufacture Ariel vehicles in Australia hasn’t eventuated, Melbourne is home to many engineering and manufacturing endeavours in the automotive industry.
These include Walkinshaw Automotive and RMA being instrumental in OEM-back left- to right-hand drive conversions, Premcar handling factory-backed upgrades of Nissan and Mitsubishi utes, and Savic building electric motorcycles in the city.
Discussion about this post