How Not to Advertise…
Aston Martin’s new car, the Cygnet, is a Toyota (soon to be released as a Scion in the US) iQ city car (think a Smart car, only smaller and cheaper) which has an A/M nose and a bespoke interior. For over twice the cost of the donor vehicle Aston hopes to sell 2000 Cygnets to existing customers. Let me restate that, Aston Martin plans to sell 2000 $35,000 cars based on a sub $15,000 car to a group of people who bitched and moaned when they introduced a “bargain priced” $120,000 car.
To convince people that this is not a bad idea, the Brits have released this video which is full of Parkour/Free Running (there is a difference, one is concerned with efficiency, the other includes flourishes think racing v. riding trails). Ok, it’s not full of it, it kinda uses it really poorly and it’s just a really bad ad. I guess there’s always a possibility that when a new sport is being used to sell an old product it will be done wrong. This is pretty high on the “it makes everything look lame” scale.
Still, after seeing Jake Kooser’s Redline strapped to the back of his Smart car, I can’t dismiss this abomination and a bike rack as not a viable mode of BMX transportation.
Wow. I’ve always wanted an Aston Martin, but not enough to lower my standards to this. It’s very surprising to me to see an established luxury brand like Aston taking this type of move, although ITTET I suppose house-priced cars aren’t really flying off the shelves, so to speak. Still a long stretch though.
Incidentally, that’s about the retail value of TWO Smart cars, both with Redlines and bike racks included. Ouch.
Jake,
I was listening to the CNET Car Tech podcast when one of the hosts, Antoine Goodwin, pointed out that given Aston’s sales volumes that if they could sell 2000 one liter, three cylinder engines it would raise their fleet fuel economy to something decent…for basically free or for cheaper than it would be for them to re-work their high power V-8 and V-12s into something halfway efficient.
Makes perfect sense now. Bravo, corporate strategy types…
I don’t know why they don’t make these cars about 10′ long so they could have a back seat and fit 4 people – like the (old) Austin Mini.