When the Aston Martin DB11 was revealed to the world earlier this year at the Geneva Motor Show, we all knew it would only be a matter of time before models following in its wake would be released. Along with providing a template for the next Vantage and Vanquish models to follow, it was also pretty apparent that we'd eventually see a drop-top Volante version. What we weren't expecting, though, was to see it shown off by Aston Martin so early.

Admittedly, the vehicle you see in these photos isn't fully representative of the customer cars, with Autocar claiming the DB11 Volante being demonstrated is a "lightly disguised engineering prototype". The fact we also won't see the production version until spring 2018 at the very earliest (which probably indicates the Volante will be officially showcased in full at that year's Geneva Motor Show) makes this a very unusual move from Aston Martin. Whether it's designed to drum up early publicity or rain on the parade of our spy photographers is anyone's guess, but there's no denying it's incredibly odd to officially announce a car nearly 20 months before it's ready to be shown.

Despite this incredibly early reveal, Aston Martin is still keeping a lot of the DB11 Volante's details under wraps. The retention of the hard top version's 5.2-liter twin-turbo V12 is pretty much guaranteed, and the photos do confirm a soft top roof system will be used, but almost everything else is up in the air at the moment. Needless to say, we're expecting lots of great things from the DB11 Volante. With a terrific platform in the form of the fixed head DB11 to work with, as well as access to some interesting hardware, it's likely that the DB11 Volante will be one of Aston Martin's best ever convertibles.