Photo: Aston Martin
In 2011, Aston Martin revealed a 3-door hatchback city car called the Cygnet, which was hoped would enable the company to comply with EU emissions standards for fleets of cars. Production and sales commenced in January 2011 and the market coverage was expanded to cover other European countries the following year.
This was a car company CEO Ulrich Bez needed to work, but sales have fallen way short of his expectations of 4,000 units per year. This isn’t surprising, since the little car costs about £30,000 to buy. Only about a hundred or so have been sold by the time they decided to stop making it.
In a recent interview with AutoCar, Bez expressed his frustration with the lack of sales. He insisted the Cygnet was the perfect car for inner-city fans of the brand. However, the CEO says, the real reason for the axing of the model is that Toyota will also stop making the iQ in 2014. Bez revealed that he wanted to bring the Cygnet to the US and that he wanted a supercharger for the 1.3-liter engine which Toyota failed to deliver on.
Toyota would not comment on the rumor of the iQ’s demise, but from what we can gather, the iQ could continue to be made for the Japanese market only, but the Scion version looks doomed. Cygnet is actually the name of a baby swan, and just like the swan this car doesn’t sound very good, which is rather ironic.
In a recent interview with AutoCar, Bez expressed his frustration with the lack of sales. He insisted the Cygnet was the perfect car for inner-city fans of the brand. However, the CEO says, the real reason for the axing of the model is that Toyota will also stop making the iQ in 2014. Bez revealed that he wanted to bring the Cygnet to the US and that he wanted a supercharger for the 1.3-liter engine which Toyota failed to deliver on.
Toyota would not comment on the rumor of the iQ’s demise, but from what we can gather, the iQ could continue to be made for the Japanese market only, but the Scion version looks doomed. Cygnet is actually the name of a baby swan, and just like the swan this car doesn’t sound very good, which is rather ironic.
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