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Aston's everywhere (Read 854 times)
Jan 30th, 2009 at 3:58pm

Craig.   Offline
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No this isn't my idea of a dream garage but an observation of the current car makers.

Am I the only one who has noticed a lot of car companies are now leaning towards designing their cars like Astons?
It started with the Jaguar XJ, fair enough designed by the guy who did Aston's, and in all fairness they are two simmilar brands anyway so no big deal. Then Jag carried this over into the XF again using designs and styling from the aston brand. Starting to dilute the market in my opinion.
Next along came Ford, again no doubt spurred on by the Aston Martin design team, we now start filling the middle management car market with the Mondeo that has aston martin inspired designs. They carry on by adding these minor touches like Lights angles and designs on other new cars like the Ka, the Focus and the Fiesta. By this point it's starting to take away the specialty and general uniqueness of the Aston Brand. Cheesy
However today it took the cake.
Renault and their new Megan I believe have once again taken a look at an Aston and thought, you know what, we'll p*ss on them by flooding the cheap saloon car market with poor quality rip offs.

The horizon for Aston looks great, the truely yummie (oh yes I said yummie. Cheesy) looking one 77 due out this year, and their new 4 door coupe which looks better than the DB9 Lips Sealed But I cant help but think with all these cheap rip off's now on the market it's taken away some of the pop.
 
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Reply #1 - Jan 30th, 2009 at 4:20pm

Mushroom_Farmer   Offline
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Yeah, I hate copycats too. Psst, aren't Jaguar and Ford still the same company?
« Last Edit: Jan 30th, 2009 at 6:40pm by Mushroom_Farmer »  

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Reply #2 - Jan 30th, 2009 at 6:23pm

Craig.   Offline
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Mushroom_Farmer wrote on Jan 30th, 2009 at 4:20pm:
Yaeh, I hate copycats too. Psst, aren't Jaguar and Ford still the same company?

I believe so.
The differance being, Jaguar as a prestige company can get away with styling like Aston. Ford just cant. Lips Sealed
 
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Reply #3 - Jan 30th, 2009 at 6:44pm

Mushroom_Farmer   Offline
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I thought they still were, but wasn't positively sure. I kinda lost respect for Jag in the 90's after one of my aunts showed up in one and upon looking inside I noticed Ford parts in the instrument cluster.
 

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Reply #4 - Jan 30th, 2009 at 6:47pm

Hagar   Offline
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I thought Ford sold Jaguar last year. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7313380.stm
 

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Reply #5 - Jan 30th, 2009 at 7:12pm

Craig.   Offline
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Cheers Doug, I wasn't 100% sure on that I never really followed the story lol. Lips Sealed
 
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Reply #6 - Feb 1st, 2009 at 5:00am

eno   Offline
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Craig ....... I think you need your eyes testing  Grin Grin

There may be some small details that are similar to Astons in some of the cars you mentioned. Apart from the Jags the rest look nothing like them.
As for the latest Megane it is by far and away the ugliest car I've seen even managing to beat the older model in the ugliness stakes. There's absolutely nothing on it that relates in any way shape or form to an Aston.
 

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Reply #7 - Feb 1st, 2009 at 6:34am

expat   Offline
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Mushroom_Farmer wrote on Jan 30th, 2009 at 4:20pm:
Yeah, I hate copycats too. Psst, aren't Jaguar and Ford still the same company?


Not just that, but with the XJ, they are the same car. It has a Mondeo chassis.

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Reply #8 - Feb 1st, 2009 at 6:50am

Craig.   Offline
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Sorry Eno. I meant the Laguna not the megan. And it does take several of the Astons features. The strip tail lights that go round the rear corners. The entire rear half is simmilar in design.
I'm not saying we have a bunch of clones, but just a lot of the specific features that you'd identify an Aston with are being ripped off.
Sort of like Fiat's being stuck with Ferrari tail lights and then head lights. Yes its the parent company, but theres no need.
 
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Reply #9 - Feb 1st, 2009 at 12:12pm

eno   Offline
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I can see where you are coming from ....... but it's only details at the moment. With things the way they are in the car industry at the moment we're going to see a lot more cloning in order to keep manufacturing and tooling costs down.
 

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Reply #10 - Feb 1st, 2009 at 2:10pm

Mushroom_Farmer   Offline
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expat wrote on Feb 1st, 2009 at 6:34am:
Mushroom_Farmer wrote on Jan 30th, 2009 at 4:20pm:
Yeah, I hate copycats too. Psst, aren't Jaguar and Ford still the same company?


Not just that, but with the XJ, they are the same car. It has a Mondeo chassis.

Matt

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...&&&&"We're just sitting here trying to put our PCjrs in a pile and burn them. And the damn things won't burn. That's the only thing IBM did right with it - they made it flameproof." &&  Spinnaker Software chairman William Bowman, 1985
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Reply #11 - Feb 2nd, 2009 at 11:17am

C   Offline
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Craig. wrote on Jan 30th, 2009 at 3:58pm:
Am I the only one who has noticed a lot of car companies are now leaning towards designing their cars like Astons?
It started with the Jaguar XJ, fair enough designed by the guy who did Aston's, and in all fairness they are two simmilar brands anyway so no big deal. Then Jag carried this over into the XF again using designs and styling from the aston brand. Starting to dilute the market in my opinion.


I think you've answered you own question. At the conceptual design stage, even for the XF, they were all Ford products.

Quote:
Not just that, but with the XJ, they are the same car. It has a Mondeo chassis.


That'd be the X-Type, which is the Jaguar Mondeo, as opposed to either the larger XJ family or S-Type, and later XF family.
 
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Reply #12 - Feb 8th, 2009 at 5:36pm

Ivan   Offline
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you know about the bugatti row... some uae bloke discovered audi logos on his veyron and sent an angry letter

Ever looked closely at VAG group A/C units? they are the same for the 'lower segment' vehicles (skoda, vw, seat)
 

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Reply #13 - Feb 9th, 2009 at 4:16pm

pete   Offline
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Well, until recently Ford also owned Aston Martin ... and the same designer for the Jag as Aston --- all in house design, same office, same time, same person/team  -- so .. not surprising  Cool

But car companies always take inspiration from each other .... you can go back to the beginning of cars and horse carts ....  Smiley

Quote:
you know about the bugatti row... some uae bloke discovered audi logos on his veyron and sent an angry letter


that's a whoopsie by Audi/VW.... of cousre Bugatti and most Bentley's are largely Audis now and made in the Audi factory ... much better cars (maybe not the Bugatti but it could not survive on it's own) but not as much character .. maybe ...

I recently saw a VW transporter full of audi's with the protective film on the convertible audi roofs and there on the same factory transporter were 2 Bentleys again with the same film on the convertible roofs.
 

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Reply #14 - Feb 14th, 2009 at 4:57am

Omag 2.0   Offline
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The Astons do have an amazing, classical, yet modern design. You see their detail popping up everywhere, Jaguar surely taking first place when it comes to cpoy creatively. But, as always, the original is hard to beat... nothing comes close to the elegant design of the DB9 and Vantage... that's why I'm a true fan...
 

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Reply #15 - Apr 14th, 2009 at 8:10am

Craig.   Offline
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