Remember the special Henrik Fisker-designed Thunderbolt we recently showed you? Apparently it’s not as special or different as Aston Martin perhaps expected it to be, and the British automaker has filed suit related to design-based intellectual property of the Vanquish-based machine.
It seems that there are design elements of Fisker’s Thunderbolt that Aston Martin feel are too close to, or even taken from, existing design elements. That’s not a total shock, considering Henrik Fisker is a former Design Director for Aston Martin, and helped create the shapes of some of their beautiful, timeless machines.

“We want to protect the Aston Martin brand and our intellectual property; Aston Martin’s Crown Jewels. Our customers and the public want to know that if they see an Aston Martin trademark, they’re getting the genuine article. Henrik Fisker’s Project Thunderbolt infringes our intellectual property rights and is being marketed in a misleading manner.”
    -Matthew Clarke, Aston Martin PR & Brand Communications Manager

You don’t mess with intellectual property. If a company feels that’s happening to them, they’re absolutely going to take action. Aston Martin sees various aspects of its own property in the exaggerated styling of the Thunderbolt, which means they’re right to create the suit and try to shut this down.
Fisker has stated the Thunderbolt is a one-off design study. Those words have been carefully chosen, we imagine. Still, it’s been said that if there is enough interest that the Thunderbolt would be made available through Galpin Aston Martin. I don’t think Galpin is interested in stepping on its relationship with the mothership, so it won’t be surprising to see the Thunderbolt fade away.