Huge V-12 For Tiny Aston Martin Cygnet? Un-Greening The Scion iQ

By Antony Ingram

Antony Ingram

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Antony is an automotive obsessive: Whether it drives, sits there looking pretty or intrigues from afar, he'll talk and write about it. Automotive... More

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A. Kahn Design custom Aston Martin Cygnet

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It seems like a level of silliness previously only associated with that other British export, Monty Python.

Sources within luxury carmaker Aston Martin suggest the tiny Cygnet minicar could be fitted with a V-12 engine.

According to Autocar, the project would be along similar lines to that of the Nissan Juke R--Nissan's ultra high performance crossover using running gear from the GT-R supercar.

The Cygnet is based on the Toyota iQ, a minicar sold in the U.S. as the Scion iQ.

While its standard engine is a 1.3-liter four-cylinder mated to a continuously-variable transmission, Aston Martin has apparently completed a feasibility study on squeezing its 6.0-liter V-12 somewhere within the vehicle.

Sources even claim that the engine fits the iQ's engine bay without extensive modifications (though surely some interior space would be lost to a transmission tunnel...), and that challenges to completing the project are "significant but not insurmountable".

The engine would likely be de-tuned from its current 510-horsepower output, as used in the DB9 and Vantage models.

The resulting Frankenstein's creation could well be one of the most ludicrous small cars ever created--and would make Aston Martin's token fuel-efficient model rather less green.

Aston hasn't yet decided whether to produce the vehicle yet, and is relying on customer demand--but remember, Nissan said the same thing about the now-in-production Juke R...

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