When first announced in 2011, the Aston Martin Cygnet piqued interest globally: a tiny sub 845kg (curb weight) hatchback with Aston mechanical gubbins. Where do I sign? Instead, the world received an Aston Martin-attired Toyota IQ.

Aston Martin went bonkers when it made the Cygnet in 2011, and sold it for a few years. Why on earth did an automaker, known for V8 and V12-powered grand tourers like the Vanquish, create a city car based on a Toyota?

A one-off V8-powered Aston Martin Cygnet has come up for sale. The factory-built custom has a 4.7-liter engine from a Vantage S. In 2018 the Super Cygnet made its debut at the Goodwood FoS. In the late 2000s Aston Martin’s then-boss Uli Betz greenlighted a wacky plan to badge-engineer the Toyota IQ city car to create an Aston-branded urban runaround.

Based on a Toyota iQ, the Aston Martin Cygnet was a short-lived luxury city car that failed to sell. This one-off swaps the tiny engine for a huge V8.

Listed via Aston Martin seller Nicholas Mee in the United Kingdom, the price is marked “POA,” or price on application. The one-off Super Cygnet has 2,893 miles on it, all courtesy of the original buyer who commissioned it.

It was summer of 2018 that the lucky few got to drive probably the maddest Aston Martin since the Bulldog. Into three metres of Cygnet was crammed 4.7 litres of Vantage V8, necessitating the fitment of Vantage subframes and moving the dash back a foot for all that engine to fit.