Aston Martin Cygnet vs. Toyota IQ: How different are they really? – Jalopnik

The Aston Martin Cygnet is one of the quirky luxury cars that you would ever get to keep an eye on. It is a luxury city car based on the Toyota IQ, also sold in America like the Scion IQ, an excellent small car that nobody wanted to buy. The Cygnet is built to solve a very specific problem – fleet emissions. The European Union was sharpening the emission instructions, in particular the average emissions of the Vloten of Autoerkerken. Exotic car manufacturers such as Porsche were linked to much larger car companies, whose collective emissions the smoke of these exotic cars looked like a drop in the ocean. Aston Martin had no such leverage for his Gas-Guzzling, carbon-sparring vits and victories. That is why the Cygnet, a car that would bring the collective fleet emission average of Aston Martin to the levels that are low enough to skate under the EU radar.

The Cygnet was made from 2011 to 2013 as a compliance car, a vehicle made to meet the government regulations. Some examples of compliance cars are the Fiat 500E, Ford Focus Electric, Honda Fit EV and Toyota RAV4 EV. Compliance cars are low cars, that is, that there is not much trouble developing them. They are either low-volume cars or just badge designed, as in the case of the Aston Martin Cygnet.

Then why don’t you make EV? Well, the year was 2011, a time when EVs were neither popular nor technologically advanced, and the development of a new EV would have cost Aston Martin much more than just hit a badge on a low emission microcar from Japan. As expected, there were few buyers for a again in Aston Martin Microcar that cost twice as much as the car on which he was based.

Usually, when you see motivated products in badge, they come from companies with a similar vision. Toyota and Subaru, Kia and Hyundai, Opel and Pontiac, Chrysler and Mitsubishi. The Cygnet was the result of a badge engineering experiment between makers of powerful, exotic sports cars and makers of economical economists. The Aston Martin Cygnet is a again in the rebadged Toyota IQ, which was sold as the Scion IQ in the US.

Both the Cygnet and IQ use the same platform, powertrain, dashboard and even seats. In 2011, while the IQ cost $ 16,000, the Cygnet cost $ 38,000. Even today the used Aston Martin Cygnets are freakly expensive. It is clear that Aston Martin had to make the cygnet different from the IQ to justify the two-time price difference. So yes, there were many small but meaningful changes that helped separate the cygnet from the IQ and to justify the premium prices.

The Cygnet not only had Aston Martin -Badges on the front and rear, but it even got the characteristic grill of the British car manufacturer, which was comparable to that on the DB9 and the benefit of the time. Aston Martin worked the work to make the Cygnet not only look different than the IQ, but it also ensured that the Cygnet looked like an Aston Martin -Nakomelingen. The Cygnet even got faux cap openings comparable to the Vantage, and cool-looking ventilation openings integrated into the headlights. It ensured that it looks very different from the closed frontfacia of the Toyota IQ, which had a crack as a grid.

In contrast to the plate -sided mudguards of the IQ, the cygnet even got the ventilation openings with a chrome strip that runs over it, an Aston Martin Design Signature. For a luxurious touch, it has chrome strips on the door handles with ‘Cygnet’ in relief on the sides. While most IQ variants came with steel wheels, the cygnet came with standard 16-inch alloys.

The rear part of the cygnet also looked different than the IQ. The C-shaped bright lens rear lights that stretch into the tailgate are more exotic cousins ​​after borrowing a distinctive look. For comparison: the IQ received small, stacked behind lamps. Aston Martin went to the extreme to hide traces of the IQ in the Cygnet. That included covering the Toyota logo on the side window with a large Aston Martin Badge. Even the generic Toyota key received a plastic cover with an Aston Martin -Badge on the back.

The specialty of the Cygnet was not in the way it looked like or its performance. It was the lush hut. Although it was small, the cabin of the Cygnet was wrapped in high -quality leather, far away from the plasticky interiors of the Toyota IQ. The IQ did not get a glove box, but on the Cygnet you can opt for a cool -looking Mapclip to save documents. While the door panels, the dashboard and the seats were wrapped in leather, the Cygnet even had aluminum metal upholstery in places such as the center console, gear lever, dental lever and even on the door cushions. Every centimeter of the Cygnet cabin was covered with leather and Alcantara. Heck, it even has rough carpets. If it concerned interiors, the Cabin of the Cygnet was just as lush as any other Aston Martin offering that time.

That said, what really separated the hut from Aston Martin Cygnet from the Toyota IQ was a single letter -“Q”. Q van Aston Martin is the internal social adaptation division of the car manufacturer. While the Cygnet was painted by hand like other exotic Aston Martins, you could choose from a large number of customized colors, including special Aston Martin DBS colors and found on the previous cars. The same level of adjustment was available for the cabin, with a wide range of learning, alcantara and dust finishes with contrast stitching. There was also the possibility to personalize embroidered finishes or even an Aston Martin logo on the seats. The Q -division added special badges to the car, both inside and out, similar to a Badge from Special Rover Special Vehicle Operations.

The engine of the Cygnet was not about performance or even a throat outdoors that you would expect from Aston Martin cars. Instead, the engine had one sole goal. To compensate the emissions that are emitted by Aston Martin’s other V8 and V12 sports cars. It wasn’t all bad. The 1.3-liter four-cylinder engine shared with the Toyota IQ supplied a fantastic fuel efficiency of 48.7 mpg. That is miles better than any other car with an Aston Martin badge.

The disadvantage was that you paid $ 40,000 to control a 98-HP microcar. Not only the engine, even the CVT automatic and manual gearbox options were shared with the Toyota IQ. The only distinctive factor, if you want, was the instrument cluster insert, which received a more pleasant design together with an Aston Martin logo. These small changes made sure that the Aston Martin Cygnet felt different from the Toyota/Scion IQ, at least from the cabin.

All Cygnet models, except one, came with the 1.3-liter engine. One customer of Aston Martin succeeded in convincing the Q -division to find out a V8 of the Vantage afterwards, making it effective the perfect city car. This 4.7-liter engine of 430 hp meant that other parts of the Cygnet had to be adjusted to compensate for extra performance, such as larger ventilation openings, wider tires, suspension and breaks of the sports cars of Aston Martin. That is a car to die for.