Great news for fans of the Ariel Atom: There will be a completely new one. While the design will remain largely similar to previous iterations going back to the late-1990s original, the company says the fourth-generation vehicle is all-new.

In fact, the redesign is so thorough that only three parts have made it to the new one from the Ariel 3: the clutch pedal, the brake pedal and the fuel cap. That's it.

The new car will be powered by the newest Honda Civic Type-R engine, which gives it 320 horsepower to work with. That's good enough to whisk it to 60 mph in just 2.8 seconds, and it'll hit 100 mph in 6.8 seconds! There's now 310 lb-ft of torque, which is 75 percent more than the engine in the Atom 3.5 produces, and it also handsomely beats the supercharged Atom 3.5's unit, with a 35 percent increase. The tubular chassis is also all-new, as is the suspension, the steering, the brakes, the seating, the instrumentation as well as the more aerodynamic bodywork. Torsional stiffness is up 15 percent from the car's predecessor.

Some 100 units will be built to order per year in the UK, and more will be licence-built in the U.S.; Ariel says the American cars will have identical specification to their British counterparts. The new-generation car will also come with type approval to make it legal to sell throughout Europe and Australasia from 2019.

As Ariel's director Tom Siebert says: 'Though we have had a small European presence over the years, there is an enormous demand for our vehicles in this market and elsewhere in the world. British-built, low volume vehicles appeal on many different levels, and Type Approval is key to our future commitment to service those markets effectively." New Ariel dealers will follow the type approval.

The new Atom 4 will debut at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in Britain.