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ONE OF THE most diminutive creations ever to wear the famous Aston Martin wings made its world debut at last weekend’s 2018 Goodwood Festival of Speed.
Dubbed the ‘The Ultimate City Car’, this one-off Aston Martin Cygnet has been built with a 4.7-litre, 430hp V8 engine from the Vantage S and a very short torque tube.
The V8 Cygnet has been brought to life for a very lucky (wealthy) customer through the ‘Q by Aston Martin – Commission’ service. This is Aston’s bespoke personalisation team.
Aston Martin Vice President & Special Operations Officer, David King said:
The V8 Cygnet shows the fun side of both Aston Martin and its customers. It is also a fine example of the engineering talent within the company as it’s no small achievement to fit the Vantage’s V8 engine so harmoniously into the Cygnet’s compact body.
For those who don’t know, the Cygnet is an Aston Martin three-door city car based on the Toyota iQ and it hit the market in 2011. It was powered by a 1.3-litre four-cylinder petrol engine that produced 98hp and 125Nm of torque.
This new V8 model is powered by the 4.7-litre, naturally-aspirated V8 that is more usually found beneath the bonnet of the previous-generation Vantage S. The engine hasn’t been neutered for the Cygnet, and power and torque figures remain at 430hp and 490Nm of torque.
The new model has been developed in-house by Aston Martin’s engineers. They started with a right-hand drive Cygnet steel body shell and panels. A roll cage was welded to this, becoming an integral part of the chassis in the process, while a new front bulkhead and transmission tunnel were fabricated from sheet metal to accommodate the V8. Subframes and suspension are also derived from the previous generation Vantage and a steel fuel tank housing has been mounted in the boot area.
Despite all this work, the car remains distinctly Cygnet-like from the outside. The face remains largely untouched, with no extra bulges in the bonnet and just a subtle black mesh for the grille. However, there’s no escaping the bulging wheelarches which are needed to accommodate the significantly wider front and rear tracks.
These also house new forged, five-spoke, diamond-turned wheels, which have grown from 16 inches to 19 inches in diameter.
Around the back of the car there are new central twin exhaust pipes. The exhaust is a bespoke system with twin underfloor mufflers and catalytic converters.
Weighing 1,375kg when full of fluids, the V8 Cygnet has a power-to-weight ratio of 313hp/tonne. As a result, the V8 Cygnet is capable of accelerating faster than the V8 Vantage S with 0-100km/h taking just over 4.2 seconds. With a top speed of 270km/h it is over 98km/h faster than the regular Cygnet. Oomph!
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Were the people of culture fighting at the boxing championship in castlerea amongst themselves again
@Dan Breen: You spelled ‘white’ wrong.
Mawdsley is an Anglo-Norman name originating from Lancashire.
Hard for intellectual pigmies to grasp but ‘Irishness’ extends a lot further than where you were born.
By your reckoning, am I to take it that you begrudge Phil Lynott & Paul McGrath? I’m sure you were more than happy to cheer them on when swilling your pints and wearing the green jersey.
What about Shane McGowan – you know that lad who was born in England and sang a load of songs about how poorly immigrants were treated abroad, how they turned to drink and drugs and sleeping rough on the Streets because society saw them as second class. I bet you’re happy to idolise the Pogues as being ‘true irishness’ whilst carrying on with the kind of actions that they would have disowned you for.
Are you actually capable of any spec of rational, critical, independent thinking at all or has your bitterness with your life and your fear of insignificance left you that open to being manipulated into blindly following whatever it is your online puppeteers are feeding you.
Read. Learn. Grow up.
@Wombleman: he’s not worth a response!
@Richard Toomey: I reported him so hopefully a good hefty ban is coming his way. I see the comment was taken down.
Overall, a frustrating & disappointing evening on the track. Can’t begrudge the Austrian lady winning her appeal & ‘taking’ Sharlene’s place….frustrating but it is what it is. Its best to get any hiccups/ kinks sorted now before Olympics in Paris. Really think this is going to be a great year for Ireland in France– we have some brilliant athletes competing & best of luck to them.
Tough decision especially as she probably had the pace to finish ahead even without stepping across. Looking at it without bias it was probably the correct decision.
@John K: 100% John, disappointing as it is the correct ‘call’ was made, Sharlene definitely faster than the Austrian lady but ‘c’est la vie’
@John K: she’d have kept her place if it was horse racing
Omg wow. Puts things into perspective! Innocent families children been murdered in Israel’s conflict. Shame on Israel, Jesus weeps . I am not anti semitic, I am calling it out as it is . Murder and modern day ethnic cleansing. U think Jewish would learn from Hitler,l!. Families fearful for their lives worrying what’s going to happen. Shame on Israel, a country I admired, now putting ur historic moment against innocent people. Israel stop please. How about love and peace. War is not what Jesus wanted … not this. Imagine what would happen if everyone just say, SORRY. Let’s move on together ,
@Brian O’Connor: Who’s jesus?
@Alan Kennedy: Google it.
@Alan Kennedy: Plays for Arsenal. Having a decent season this year.
@Sal Paradise: Ah yes, that lad! Not as good as Mohammed!
Palestine now formally recognised in my Heart and forgiveness to Israel as always in my heart too ❤️ PEACE TOGETHER
@Brian O’Connor: forgiveness to Israel?
That’s nice of you, but I wouldn’t think the Palestinian people feel the same way after watching there children blown to pieces,
whatever happened to ‘never again’?
It’s absolutely disgusting what’s going on over there!
That ***ing ridiculous
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