Aston Martin’s beautiful swan turns out to be an ugly duckling, and the Cygnet is axed.
Aston Martin has cancelled production of the Cygnet city car because of poor sales. The British company had intended to sell some 4000 examples of the rebadged Toyota iQ per year when it launched in 2011, but just 150 have been sold.
Many were sceptical when the Cygnet was revealed by Aston Martin, especially when the $51,000 price tag was announced, and it seems the market agreed with the critics. Too few people were prepared to spend Porsche Cayman money on a small Toyota with a new badge and a fancy interior.
Although other premium manufacturers have had success with smaller cars – most notably Audi with the A1 and BMW with the MINI – the rivals were developed in-house and cost considerably less. Aston operates independently and doesn’t have the resources and economies of scale that a larger parent company would have for development and technology, so taking the iQ as a base and hoping the public would accept it was always a gamble.
Aston is struggling a little at at the moment – sales were down in 2012 and the company reported a loss of $39.2 million. However, it has plans to double sales by 2016 through upgrades to its current range. We’re big fans of the brand and its illustrious heritage, so hopefully that plan will have more success than the ill-fated attempt to flog the Cygnet.
