Aston Martin makes some of the most beautiful cars on the planet, with sports cars like the Aston Martin Vantage and DBS Superleggera truly mastering the balance between brawn and beauty. However, despite its best efforts, Aston is in financial trouble. This has led to many speculating that technical partner Mercedes-AMG may look to take a controlling stake in the British brand to help save it. It makes sense considering how many engines AMG supplies Aston with, but these rumors have just been dashed by the big man himself, Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola Kallenius. Speaking with Autocar, the boss says that Mercedes is not looking to increase its 5% stake in Aston.

"No, we're not going to take industrial control of Aston Martin", said Kallenius. "But we have a very successful co-operation with Aston Martin and that will continue." Mercedes recently announced that it was looking to reduce costs in order to be able to better transfer new technologies to cheaper cars. Thus, the denial of the Aston Martin rumor makes sense considering that taking on an ailing luxury sports car manufacturer is not exactly the sort of thing that the bean counters would consider prudent for short-term financial success. That doesn't mean that Mercedes has been unwilling to help, though. Earlier this year, former AMG chairman Tobias Moers replaced Any Palmer as CEO of Aston. This indicates a good working relationship.

In addition, reports have indicated that Mercedes-AMG F1 boss, Toto Wolff, got involved by purchasing 14.5 million shares in the British firm. Along with financial assistance from Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll - current majority shareholder in Aston - Mercedes was once considering using Aston Martin to coach-build some limited-edition Maybach offerings, but this was abandoned despite getting to the concept stage. Whatever the future holds, it appears that Mercedes is going to remain strong and get even better, but Aston Martin's prospects are looking a little less certain. All the James Bond 007 cameos in the world can't save a business that isn't run properly.