HIPER REALITY

Ariel's first-ever EV, a 1200bhp projectile codenamed Hipercar, is shaping up to be a car like no other. We drive the prototype

- JAMES TAYLOR

EVER HEARD OF THE SHEPARD TONE? THE AURAL illusion of a note that never stops rising - a sort of audio equivalent of a barber shop's spinning pole - it overlaps ascending scales on top of one another in such a way as to be impossible to tell when one is fading in and another fading out. The resultant ever-rising glissando has been used by everyone from The Beatles to Taylor Swift and forms the sonic bedrock to the 2017 film Dunkirk, building intensity throughout the movie.

That nugget of trivia crosses my mind behind the Ariel Hipercar prototype's wheel because the chorus of its four electric motors seems never to stop rising or gaining intensity. It sounds a bit like a London Underground train, only much higher pitched, more frenzied - and at a frequency that just keeps going up and up. As, indeed, does the sense of acceleration. The speed readout on the race carstyle digital display behind the wheel changes digits almost faster than my eyes can follow, if they weren't already focused far down the road. I don't know at what speed that ascending tone finally levels out-self preservation kicks in before road runs out, and I back off.

The thing about the acceleration,' says engineer Tom McLaren, 'is that in a combustion-engined car it eventually tails off. In this it just keeps going...' I see what he means.

This is one of the first times anyone outside of the Ariel Motor Company has driven the all-electric Hipercar on the road. It's very much a prototype - the completed production car will arrive in late 2024 or perhaps the first half of 2025. But as it stands it's already a fascinating piece of kit. Another reason all that Shepard Tone stuff is randomly on my mind is that the science behind the Ariel Hipercar is both interesting and quite a lot to take in.