Also, more often than not, because it’s operating off little more than someone’s inheritance cheque or a loan from the bank, the upstart company needs to find a second-hand engine from somewhere as well.
This isn’t to say small upstart performance manufacturers can’t make exceptional cars. The best of the breed must be the UK-built Ariel Atom which kept things simple and made sure it placed a powerful engine in the lightest body it could produce themselves.
Okay, the Atom is more of a track day car than it is an everyday supercar, but that hasn’t stopped US-based performance upstart – Rezvani – from using the Atom as the base for its new car; the Beast.
Honestly, that is what Rezvani are calling it: the Beast. Essentially it’s an Ariel Atom draped with a McLaren Mercedes SLR Stirling Moss-like body made from carbonfibre composites and Rezvani believe this will be a welcome change from Atom buyers who are used to the standard car’s bare-boned body structure.
The Beast’s bespoke body was designed by Samir Sadikhov but it’s not only aggressive for the sake of it – although those pretty gorgeous 19-inch wheels are worth drooling over – because it does have practical merit in the form of a removable windshield and rollover hoops in the event of a nasty accident.
The windshield is a useful item as there is plenty of power to create wind-bluster. Like the Atom, the entry-level Beast 300 has a turbocharged 2.0-litre engine producing 235kW, while the Beast 500 gets a 2.4-litre supercharged engine with 372kW. 0-100kph is dusted in 2.9 seconds for the 300 and 2.7 seconds in the 500, owing to the threadbare kerb weight of 669kg and 705kg for each.
The drivetrains are built by Atom specialists, DDM Works; and each model gets a six-speed manual gearbox, limited-slip differential and rear-wheel drive for maximum driveability. Available as ‘Launch Edition’ models, the Rezvani Beast 300 starts from around $100 000 (roughly R1 million), but the best part is existing Ariel Atom customers car upgrade their cars for around R500k – R700k.