NEARLY THERE: Aston Martin’s Cygnet could be on the market in 12 months.
IHAVE said it before and I will say it again; the best people to chat to are always the automotive designers. They hold the true passion for any brand and they tell it like it is, without any of the spin that you get from the marketing and PR types.
So it was that I again arranged to sit down with Marek Reichman, the design director at Aston Martin to discuss some of the existing and future projects for the luxury sportscar maker. Not surprisingly the conversation began with a discussion about how the brand is doing in the current tough economic climate.
“In adverse conditions, you design around it,” said Reichman. He stressed that you have to adopt that traditional Darwinian theory of “adapt and survive”. While adapting to a short-term situation is all well and good, he says that he generally thinks five to six years ahead. This is always what we journos want to know about, but while he referred to “our thoughts about what the impossible might be”, he remained fairly tight-lipped, perhaps because we did have one of the communications team watching over us.
Interestingly for a brand that has been constantly evolving, two of his major projects are fairly quick ones. First the supercar One-77 was launched just two and a half years after he put pen to paper. Only one exists at the moment and is being taken around the world for potential customers to test, but with only 77 being made, half are already sold.
It was one of those projects that Reichman really wanted to do, but as he told me in a previous interview, he usually has about 30 potential designs that have to be relegated to the drawer. This one was different.
The other project has only recently begun and while it may disturb some aficionados, the decision to produce a baby Aston makes perfect sense. The Cygnet, which is currently only a clay model, is set to go on sale in just 12 months and will be based on the city car trio, the Toyota IQ, Peugeot 107 and Citroen C1. It is the marque’s response to the “changing world that we live in”, he said and is designed to meet the “needs that certain customers have”.
The Cygnet “looks cute, looks cool, looks desirable”, said Reichman, but the main focus is to produce a car that has all the classic appeal of an Aston but suits the city environment. You will only be able to buy one if you are an existing Aston Martin owner. Not only will it be easy to park and drive around town, but with many cities implementing similar schemes to London’s Congestion Charge, the Cygnet will not attract any charges or additional taxes at all.
It will be based on the same mechanicals as the IQ, with a 1.0l engine and the same transmission. However its body design and more importantly, interior design, will be all Aston. It will have four seats and a typical Aston Martin layout, with plenty of luxury and refinement that could only come from the top of the scale. The car will only be seen for the first time in its full concept form at next year’s Geneva Motor Show before going on sale at the end of 2010.
The long awaited Rapide will finally make its final production car debut at September’s Frankfurt Motor Show ahead of its market introduction early next year.
“(Porsche) Panamera for me is a limousine,” said Reichman. “Rapide is a sportscar.” No surprises that he thinks his creation will be the better of the two, a fact which obviously remains to be seen. The Rapide will be a full four-seater offering for those who need luxury, refinement, interior space and performance.
Reichman and his team recently took a drive through Austria, where the car will be made and said it has the “agility and speed that the looks of the car suggests”. Onlookers could not believe that there were four people in the car. “I’m 6’4” and in the back I was ok,” he said. “I wouldn’t fight for the seat but it was ok.”
Reichman is now working on the next round of products for Aston and while not surprisingly he did not wish to elaborate too much , it is clear that the company is not going to let up in its quest to produce desirable sportscars.
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