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M
ay
2009
www.read-tpt.com54
›
P
roduction &
P
rocessing of
A
utomotive
T
ube
E
ven as it virtually abolishes the concept
‘under the hood’
, the high-performanceAtom
sports car designed by Britain’s Ariel Motor Co epitomizes tubing for automotive
applications. The car which has been called
‘driving nirvana’
has very little bodywork.
Its exposed chassis, fashioned of large-diameter
steel tube welded by the bronze and
tungsten inert gas (TIG) process,
gives the vehicle a skeletal look
that declares
‘supercar’
.
While it scarcely seems to allow for internal apparatus, this machine named for the
fundamental building block in nature does have it, and it is as tube-intensive as
the car’s exoskeletal profile. The Atom has an internal combustion engine; a six-
speed manual gearbox; a hydraulic clutch; and steering, suspension, and braking
systems – none of them in the least exotic to a garage mechanic qualified for four-
cylinder work.
For as long as fuel-powered automobiles must be activated, steered, turned, stopped
– that is, for as long as they are driven – even a car built for acceleration from zero to
60mph in under four seconds will be dependent on its delivery systems.
From the wide tubing that encloses a rack-and-
pinion gearset to the narrow tubing for pneumatic
and hydraulic fluid transport, the products
of tube making are essential to
the automotive enterprise.
They have been from the
beginning. And they will
be when the Ariel Atom,
now in its third incarnation,
reaches, say, its tenth.
With a steel tubular chassis,
the Atom is the epitome
of innovative usage of
automotive tube
(photo courtesy of Ariel Motor Co –
www.arielmotor.co.uk)