Toyota supplied the platform for the Aston Martin Cygnet through the Toyota iQ.
The Cygnet was a heavily restyled and rebadged version of Toyota’s compact iQ city car. Aston Martin revised the exterior and interior to give it the marque’s grille, materials and luxury detailing, but the underlying engineering came from the Toyota iQ. The collaboration allowed Aston Martin to enter the city-car market without developing a tiny car from scratch.
The Cygnet’s unusual role also explains why it is often remembered as an emissions-compliance project rather than a conventional Aston Martin. Its sale helped reduce the company’s average fleet emissions under European Union rules taking effect in 2012. Aston Martin marketed it from 2011, but demand was far below expectations; production ended in 2013 after fewer than 600 examples were sold across Europe. It was not based on a BMW, Ford or Honda platform.