Aston Martin Cygnet V8 review

Naturally, it’s the V8 Cygnet’s noise that gets you first. And everyone who is in earshot of it, which is about 60 per cent of the planet at any given time. The whole process is akin to a horrendously dubbed foreign movie: the images your eyes see fail to match the soundtrack your ears hear as this little city car fires up with a load of revs and blub-blub-blubs away at idle. And safe to say, 430bhp in something with the proportions of a Victorian pram is quite potent. Being 250kg lighter than a Vantage, you could see one off to 60mph in 4.2secs. And if you’re brave/mad enough, apparently the top speed is 170mph. Which is plenty.

You sit high in the car, but the centre of gravity is low, largely as wedging that dry-sumped 4.7-litre 430bhp V8 up front meant it had to be. But you’d think such a large lump would mean it’d protrude half way back into the cabin. It doesn’t. In fact, apart from pedals positioned out to the right, there doesn’t seem to be much of a packaging penalty for replacing the 1.0-litre four cylinder with a motor of twice the cylinders and five times the capacity. But a motor with twice the cylinders and five times the capacity of what normally resides there creates quite a lot of heat through the bulkhead. There is air-con but it’s more of a cool yawn when competing with those thrashing pistons that are creating great energy up front.

Unsurprisingly, the engine commands proceedings. In this age of small capacity turbocharged engines, it really has to fight for torque and work hard, but it’s smooth, linear and one hell of an event chucking out torque and power through the rear transaxle gearbox and rear wheels. Yep, it’s rear-drive only and through Aston’s famously lazy Sportshift automatic gearbox. Admittedly, the seven-speed automated manual was never the Vantage’s strong point, but as the V8 Cygnet isn’t a fully developed production car, the ’box is super-sluggish; slipping gears and taking an age to engage a cog. But when it does, you’re snapped back and given all the power. With surprisingly good traction from the back wheels and being softly sprung, every prod of the throttle sees you point skyward, thinking you’re going to wheelie back onto the Vantage’s giant rear anti-roll bar.

Your ears smile as the revs hit the red line and a metallic whap of eight cylinders howls while you hold on and pray the V8 Cygnet doesn’t backflip. And when you smash the brake pedal, the 380mm/330mm brakes of the Vantage donor car activate and the super-Cyg appears to want to dive beneath the tarmac under braking. In such a small wheelbase, and with a soft damping setup, it keeps you on your toes but is not to be feared. Just adjusted to. Especially in corners.

The Cyg serves up plenty of mechanical grip from the independent double wishbone front and rear suspension – plus that low centre of gravity – and you can feel what’s going on thanks to direct, pointy steering with feedback enhanced thanks to a motorsport-inspired quick-release alacantara steering wheel. But there's no traction or stability control – apparently at the owner's request – so in the wet you have to be wary of the rear end and short wheelbase. Luckily, there’s also some added grip from the rather serious Michelin Pilot Cup 2 tyres. Well, in the dry. But once you get under its skin and work out the unique nuances of the suspension and diff set up (it likes to spool up the wheel you’re not expecting) there’s a lovely balance and point where the car squats down on its soft springs, gather traction and can just load up and fire off in the distance with a small amount of opposite lock. Not too dissimilar to a go-kart on a wet track.