Aston Martin Shall Call You… Mini-Me
theautoalert.blogspot.com aston-martin-cygnet, originally uploaded by AutoAlert!
Aston Martin and Toyota have teamed up to create a city car known as the Aston Martin Cygnet. What we are talking about here is basically a special edition of the Toyota iQ Car. You take a bare bones Toyota iQ, throw a little leather at it, a little flare, jack up the price to $32,000, and you’ve got yourself one heck of a competitor to the Smart ForTwo and the electric Mini Cooper.
If you’re expecting Aston Martin type performance, you better think again. The Cygnet has no more gusto that the regular Toyota iQ, it only looks faster. But there is very good reason for this. Aston Martin is looking for a little green to throw in with the rest of their ozone hole punching fleet, such as the DBS, Vantage, and D89.
The new European legislation is about to crack down on manufacturers, forcing them to produce more fuel efficient vehicles than ever before. The good news is, it won’t be so much the efficiency of each car, but rather the efficiency of the entire fleet (as an average).
So if you have one Cygnet at 60 mpg and one DBS at 10 mpg, you’re basically getting an average of 35 mpg give or take a few. In other words, the Aston Martin Mini-Me allows those who want to be green, to be green, while those who like their big V-12’s, they can still have them, and feel a little less guilty.
The above photo is just a sneak peak of what the Cygnet is going to look like once it is complete. The main draw will be its excellent fit and finish, which Aston Martin promises will be just as well-built as any other $100,000+ sport, luxury vehicle.
Aston Martin plans on selling approximately 4,000 to 5,000 of these a year to uphold their green standards, and it will be by far their least inexpensive vehicle in quite some time. Austin Powers, eat your heart out!
