Aston has announced that they're grafting their signature grille onto a Toyota iQ and selling it as the Aston Cygnet. What's with the April Fool's joke in June?
Hey corporate guys who all seem hell-bent on ruining brands: you cannot boil a brand down to a grille. You can't slap an Aston-Martin-shaped grille on a Toyota iQ microcar and not hurt your brand.
Cadillac did this in the 1980s, slapping a Cimmaron badge on the pile-of-dung Cavalier, and look what happened to its brand for the next ten years.
GM didn't learn its lesson. It moved the ignition switch on the center console of a pile-o-crap SUV and called it a Saab 9-7X. Look where Saab is now.
Chrysler built a couple of LeBarons in Italy and slapped Maserati badges on them in the 1980s, too. And look where Chrysler is now, and where Maserati was for years before Ferrari recussitated the brand with the Quattoporte.
And don't get me started on that disaster of a VW Routan.
There's nothing wrong with the Toyota iQ. In fact, I think it's one of the cutest cars on the road, it's a marvel of packaging efficiency, and I can't wait to drive one. It also has the most deliciously sculpted steering wheel this side of a GTI. But you can't slap an Aston Martin badge and a grille on it, make no mechanical changes, and expect people to not laugh at you.
When, oh, when, will these companies realize that you can't be all things to all people without having the cachet of Wal-Mart? If Aston slaps a lusty V-12 in the iQ and makes it rear-wheel drive, I'll shut up. Until then, I'll consider this year's biggest brand blunder.
And that's a big statement: this is the year of the unsightly Porsche Panamera and the completely uncalled-for BMW X5 M.