If you, like us, are fans of the mechanical madness provided by Top Gear, you’ll be familiar with the show’s famous fastest lap time board.

And if you were to look at the current standings, you’d probably expect someone like Ferrari or Aston Martin to lead the way but you’d actually be wrong. It’s not an American muscle car or Japanese drifter either but in fact a sublime example of British engineering produced in Somerset.

Ariel is the manufacturer of extreme speed and their Atom 500 V8 holds the current Top Gear record of 1 min 15.1 secs which if you’re not familiar with Top Gear…it’s fast! Like lightening fast!

With the capability of reaching 0-60 mph in less than 2.3 seconds, this car features a 500 horsepower 3.0 litre engine but because of its lightweight body, pumps out a staggering 900 bhp/tonne which is enough power to basically tear your face off! So probably best to wear a helmet we guess…

This is mechanical mathematics and extreme engineering at its pinnacle and who knows…maybe one day you could be one of the team featured in this video…