Automotive journalist Chris Harris just told a hilarious story about one of his earliest gigs reviewing a car. Besides a couple laughs, it’s ignited an interesting debate about whether a luxury carmaker can and should borrow components from more budget-friendly vehicles.

The way Harris tells it, he arrived to review the Aston Martin DB7 Vantage, and things were off to a rocky start from the beginning. Who should greet him? “Harry Carlton, the famous PR man that worked there.” Calrton was Aston Martin’s Director of Public Affairs. His first comment to Harris was, “You’re too young” to review this car.

The accusation could be taken in two ways. The first was pure snobbery: “You can’t possibly have enough experience reviewing cars to appreciate an Aston Martin DB7.” But the second, possibly hidden meaning was, “You’re so far from this vehicle’s intended audience that you’ll probably give us a lousy review.” Whether or not that was true, Carlton may have also thought Harris was too “hip” or too “in-the-know” to be fooled by PR spin—and he would have been right.

Harris sat down in the car, looked around, and immediately said, “These turn signal stalks are from a Ford.”

Carlton’s response: “Most people who buy our cars haven’t sat in a Ford, so they wouldn’t know.”

So it’s apparently fine to buy budget parts and slap a luxury badge—and a luxury price tag—on them because your customers don’t know better? Honestly, it’s refreshing to hear a PR person say the quiet part out loud to Harris.

Aston Martin, of course, had a long relationship with Ford. Its PR team often tried to differentiate the brand’s engineering and design from Ford’s. But apparently not everyone bothered.

Boutique cars, common tech

This will be an increasingly common occurence. One place boutique exotic cars often lag behind is infotainment software. A tiny company hand-building high-end cars rarely has the R&D budget necessary to make excellent software.

The Bugatti Chiron famously skipped screens altogether. The company claimed the result was a pure driving experience, but it was also one less thing to worry about—unless you were backing up and wondering where your reverse camera was.

Aston Martin has since joined Apple’s new “CarPlay Ultra” program, which offers custom-branded infotainment and instrument panel software for automakers. We may see more luxury automakers adopt “entry-level” infotainment. The result could be a much more usable vehicle.

For his part, Harris didn’t take any real offense to the Ford turn signal stalks. He later said, “I still think it’s one of smartest answers to cheap switch gear ever.”

Aston Martin wasn’t the last exotic car company Harris clashed with. He famously accused Ferrari of giving journalists review cars built to a higher standard than regular production vehicles. Ferrari blacklisted him from testing new models, though the automaker reportedly lifted the ban two years later.