Ariel Motorcycles

Ariel's motorcycle history dates to 1901, growing out of a Birmingham bicycle maker that had patented the spoked wheel decades earlier; the marque became known for unconventional engineering, most famously the Square Four engine with its twin contra-rotating crankshafts. The original company was sold to BSA in 1951 and the Ariel name lapsed by 1970. It was revived from 1999 by Simon Saunders, together with his sons Tom and Henry, as the Ariel Motor Company, based in Crewkerne, Somerset - initially known for the lightweight Atom sports car. In 2014 the modern company launched the Ace, its first new motorcycle in over 50 years, built around a Honda V4 engine in a machined billet-aluminium frame with Ariel's own girder forks, hand-assembled in batches of roughly 100-150 a year alongside the Atom. Ariel ended the Ace's ten-year production run in 2024.