Almost 30 years before the Cygnet, Aston Martin designed a city car marketed in 26 units under the name Frazer-Tickford Metro. One of those now forgotten bodybuilder MG Metro has recently gone on sale.
Between 2010 and 2013, Aston Martin ventured to offer a city car called Cygnet. It was nothing more than a rebadged Toyota iQ, with a luxurious finish and offered as a complementary product for owners of its GTs. The car was a commercial failure and only a few hundred copies were produced. Yet this exercise was not the first of its kind for Aston Martin. The prestigious English manufacturer had already designed, three decades earlier, a small city car. But the latter does not carry the Aston Martin brand. This is the Frazer-Tickford Metro.
From Austin to Frazer via Aston Martin
To understand the genesis of this “Aston Martin Metro”, you have to dive into the bag of knots that was the British automotive industry. You may be familiar with the Metro, a cubic city car marketed under the MG and Austin brands which were part of the British Leyland consortium.
In 1982, the Tickford bodybuilder was owned by David Brown, like Aston Martin, some of which still bear the contractor’s initials. And the latter decided to resurrect the Frazer brand to badger an opulent re-bodied Metro, with improved performance by the Aston Martin teams. Thus was born the Frazer-Tickford Metro.
A Metro prepared by Aston Martin
Compared to a standard Metro, the Frazer-Tickford is recognizable by its wide body kit, four fog lights and interior clad in leather and Alcantara.
The 1.3L four-cylinder under the hood gets a new Weber twin-barrel carburetor, reworked cylinder head, modified camshaft and revised valves. This preparation signed Aston Martin allows it to develop 80 hp.
That’s 9 hp more than a standard 1982 Metro 1.3 L, but still 14 hp less than the MG Metro Turbo. The Frazer-Tickford also benefits from a chassis and ground links modified by Aston Martin for more sporty handling.
26 copies including one for sale
When it was launched in 1982, the Frazer-Tickford Metro cost more than a Porsche 944 across the Channel. Suffice to say that the objective of its designers has never been that of sales volumes. Only 26 copies were produced including three for the United States. One of these was acquired new by Wendal McBride, who was then official Ferrari photographer and kept it until his death in 2013. The car then joined a private collection and has not known a new owner since. Between 2015 and 2018, it was the subject of some care (revision, repair of the rims, replacement of the exhaust …). It currently displays around 15,000 km. Recently offered for auction in the UK by H And H and estimated between 35,000 and 45,000 £ (41,600 € to 53,500 € approximately), it did not find a taker. If you are interested, therefore watch the specialized sites because it could be that this forgotten city car Aston Martin will soon be put back on sale.
