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V8-Powered Aston Martin Cygnet Sounds Crazy at Goodwood

The Goodwood Festival of Speed is one of the few motoring events where electric cars haven't completely taken over. It's also where manufacturers let rip with their loudest, most exotic-sounding creations. However, you probably never expected a tiny city car like the Aston Martin Cygnet to make a splash there.
V8-Powered Aston Martin Cygnet Sounds Crazy at Goodwood 4 photos
Photo: YouTube screenshot
V8-Powered Aston Martin Cygnet Sounds Crazy at GoodwoodV8-Powered Aston Martin Cygnet Sounds Crazy at GoodwoodV8-Powered Aston Martin Cygnet Sounds Crazy at Goodwood
A cygnet is what you'd call a baby swan. We had to Google it again, just to make sure, as we haven't talked about this car in a long time. Wanting to lower its overall emissions, Aston Martin partnered up with Toyota and shoehorned all the luxury it could into their iQ model.

However, the Cygnet was only supposed to have 98 horsepower from a 1.33-liter engine. So how has a car that went out of production ended up at Goodwood with a 430 horsepower V8 engine?

The answer is obvious: a crazy fan paid Aston lots of money to build this. And his idea was right on the money because I don't think there was a car at Goodwood that got more love than this. Hearing V8 roar from something this side requires suspense of disbelief. It's like watching somebody levitate.

Aston says the owner also has a Vulcan. But I think they've actually been working on this in-house for a while and just happened to find somebody willing to buy it.

More than just an engine transplant, this project is a Cygnet body fitted over a shortened V8 Vantage, a bit like those GT-R-powered Nissan Jukes. The city car comes with suspension, brakes, and tracks from the sports car model. The 4.7-liter unit sends power to the rear wheels via a transaxle auto gearbox.

We think Aston wants to evolve the car a bit further and bring it to Goodwood once again. They could move some things around, strip a bit of weight or make it sound even naughtier.

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About the author: Mihnea Radu
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Mihnea's favorite cars have already been built, the so-called modern classics from the '80s and '90s. He also loves local car culture from all over the world, so don't be surprised to see him getting excited about weird Japanese imports, low-rider VWs out of Germany, replicas from Russia or LS swaps down in Florida.
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