Aston Martin DB12, Synapse Orange

The DB12 is the car with which Aston Martin stopped calling its front-engined GT a grand tourer and started calling it a super tourer. Under the long clamshell bonnet sits a reworked 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 pushing 671bhp, but the real change is in how it lands: a stiffer body, recalibrated dampers and a wider track give it the body control of a sports car without surrendering the cross-continent ease the DB line has always promised. The face says as much, with that enormous reprofiled grille, the squinting LED lamps and the muscular haunches you see in profile. It is a car built for the long drive done quickly, with the cabin treated as seriously as the chassis.

Finished here in Synapse Orange, a deep saturated coral that holds its gloss through every curve of the bodywork and plays off the gloss-black roof, the diamond-cut black wheels and the yellow brake calipers just visible behind the spokes. The rear three-quarter captures the clean tail with its slim full-width lamp signature and the discreet DB12 plate. MotorHelix presents it at 1:18 on a finished display base.