About 18 months ago, Aston Martin appeared to be on the ropes. Leadership succession plans seemed to be faltering, the product range needed overhauling and new investment on the scale required appeared hard to come by.

One by one, each of those issues has been addressed.

In Andy Palmer, Aston has another mercurial talent at the helm, and one grounded in the realities of engineering and production. In AMG and Mercedes, it has the ideal partners to take it forward in all the areas required. And, come next month’s Geneva motor show, we expect to have a clear outline of where the investors are going to spend their money to accelerate development of a new era of cars.

This overwhelmingly positive backdrop brings with it many benefits, not least of them being the way in which last week’s Aston Martin Vantage GT3 and this week’s Aston Martin Vulcan can be viewed. They are not – as was potentially the case – limited-edition fripperies but, instead, the work of a company celebrating the end of one era and preparing to begin another, in the finest of style.