Small British car companies are continuing to survive even though they face tough legislation challenges, writes Conor Twomey.
When you see automotive giants like Chrysler, GM and Ford struggle against a tide of red ink, you have to wonder just how all those tiny British car companies manage to stay afloat.
New safety and environmental legislation is making life very difficult for the big carmakers to remain competitive, so how is it that the likes of Ariel, Westfield, Caterham, Lotus, Morgan, Noble and Marcos can stay in business?
According to Simon Saunders, co-founder and owner of Ariel Motor Company, being small is the key advantage. "What we should be doing at this end of the market is what the big boy can't or won't do, rather than trying to emulate them," he says. For Ariel, that means producing "naked" sport cars fitted with a range of engines, the slowest of which can match a Porsche 911 for performance.
For a major manufacturer to achieve the sort of performance Ariel's Atom is capable of would require multi-million euro investment, years of rigorous testing and development and a phone number price tag, which puts the cars beyond the reach of ordinary enthusiasts. Ariel manages to keep its car affordable by keeping it simple. Saunders used the example of the ordinary car door as an example.
"Our philosophy is: if it hasn't got it, it doesn't need it. If it does have it, it's top quality. We don't want to do a rubbish door, which is one reason why our cars don't have doors. The other reason is it makes the car incredibly strong and incredibly safe."
For Westfield Sport Cars, a West Midlands-based kit car manufacturer, the emphasis is on individuality. Julian Turner, managing director of Westfield, explains: "A lot of times we get people calling us saying - I've got this engine what can I do with it?
"It usually starts off with an engine. They've either got it off a mate, or someone's had a bump in the car and they've got the engine out of a car in a scrapyard.
"Usually you only have to change the engine mounts and a few other bits and pieces but it's relatively simple.
"We try to simulate as many engine projects as we can here in the factory, so that we know when we're talking to people we can say 'Yes, that'll fit.' Some people have put in two bike engines together, Mazda engines, GM engines, V6s, V8s . . ."
Whereas the Ariel Atom is essentially an off-the-shelf supercar that appeals to the hardcore enthusiast element, Westfield's appeal is broader and more personal. This is mainly because their basic kits sell for a little less than €3,000 (excluding VAT) so it's possible for anyone with a garage and a lot of free time to build their own sports car, since there's no welding, riveting, cutting or painting involved.
Soon all cars sold in Europe will have to be Euro 4 compliant, low volume or otherwise, and this will impact on small carmakers.
The electronics in the car have to be clever enough to realise when the catalytic converter isn't working properly and can shut the ECU down to prevent further damage and it has to pass certain drive-by noise regulations, too.
In Westfield's case, they even have to re-route their exhaust systems because many of their cars have side-exit pipes and these aren't allowed under Euro 4 rules.
"It's a big hurdle we have to overcome, but to remain competitive we have to have a Euro 4 compliant car," says Turner. "Safety is another area we're working on. There's a lot more coming with Euro 5. This is something we're already working on with our competitors because it impacts on all our work."
Ariel is in a slightly better position because its Honda engines are already largely Euro 4 compliant and don't need major work to make them conform. Even so, Ariel continues to rely on Single Vehicle Approval (SVA) because its volumes are so small it wouldn't be worthwhile to go for full European certification.
"If you want to go for pan-European-type approval you are talking about hundreds of thousands of pounds and that brings you back to the problem of investment," says Saunders. "SVA is acceptable in the UK and should be acceptable in all European countries, but it isn't."
The UK isn't the only market that matters. Around 80 per cent of Westfield's sales have been to European countries outside of the UK and up to 80 per cent of those sales are kits.
"France, Spain, Greece, Sweden and Holland are our biggest markets. Germany's a huge market but we haven't tapped into that yet.
"There's a lot of interest in kits as well, which is great because in some countries we can only sell kits because of registration difficulties. We've sold loads into Ireland, too.
"I think we've about a hundred cars in Ireland," he says.
Saunders says Ariel is similarly reliant on foreign buyers and has even licensed the Atom to a motorsports outfit in the US who build and market the car in North America and Canada.
But because Ariel doesn't offer kit versions of the car, Atom volumes are still only about a quarter of Westfield's, although this isn't a concern for Saunders since, he explains, the company was set up to operate profitably at these volumes.
"We didn't say we'd make 500 cars a year. Other carmakers keep putting in numbers until [the business model] breaks even, but we've made money almost from the offset."
Saunders himself is an accomplished designer who has previously worked for GM (Vauxhall/Bedford), Aston Martin and Porsche, and pretty much designed the car himself.
The good news for Irish enthusiasts is that both cars should be on sale in Ireland before too long.
An Ariel dealership is in the process of being set up by Brian Kennedy, an industrial cleaning equipment supplier in Ballymoney, Co Antrim, while Westfield is currently in negotiations with Rally School Ireland in Co Monaghan with a view to setting up a dealership there.
A test drive in either car is probably the best way to understand how and why these companies continue to thrive.
Both Westfield and Ariel offer something unique to the customer and their products are hugely entertaining in very different ways.
It's nice to know you can still buy (and afford) a car that isn't completely strangled by electronic gizmos or determined to make the driving experience an ever more passive undertaking.