Whenever I travel abroad, I am amazed at how many products are copied, badly, and sold on the streets. Fake Rolexes are the common example, but Louis Vitton bags, leather wallets, Ferrari jackets and even women (watch for adam’s apples) are poorly replicated around the world and sold to tourists looking to get luxury at a steal. I have no problem if someone wants to sell you a fake Burberry scarf for $10, because I think the fact an authentic ugly plaid one costs $350 is retarded. It’s not an attractive design, it’s just unique and lets the world know you have a nice bank account.
But this is just plain wrong. It is an Aston Martin DB9 kit car. Kit cars were popular in the early 90s, when you could buy a mid-engined Pontiac Fiero for $12.50 and bolt a plastic Ferrari-ish body onto it. With a VW engine in the back making 200hp, you were the MAN to anyone with the brainpower of a 7 year old. Luckily the US took some medicine to cure this disease, but someone flew to Thailand and it spread.
Like the Fiero, this Aston is built on the shitbox known as the Opel Calibra. The Calibra was a “sports car” designed in the late 80s from the frame of a large family sedan. It is a front-engined, FWD car with the lines of a coupe but the heft of a family sedan. Heavy, big, but only two doors? Where can sign up?? How this became the platform to replicate one of the greatest exotic cars of my life, I don’t know. It’s sacriligious no matter what it’s built on, but at least make an effort. A FWD Aston? You might as well build a monster truck with a Prius’ drivetrain. Copying a DB9 with, say, a Z06 platform would be stupid, but at least it would perform well. This is just the biggest example of “all show no go” since the 1979 Corvette. For shame. So do your part. Write your congressman, and tell him to end the slander of Aston Martin’s good name. For pennies a day, you can save a perfectly friendly and useful Opel from being butchered and turned into a circus freak. Please help.
just check out the breaks! (or lack of a huge 14" rotor) =-)
what kind of car is this one based on?
It was an Opel Calibra. I feel sorry for it.
[...] Automotive Atrocities in Thailand: Aston Martin kit car [...]
There's actually a company in the US that sells these type of body conversions. The Aston one they sell is for a Jag XK, and it actually looks pretty legit when installed properly, but that's probably because the Jag and the Aston share a similar platform to begin with.