The UK car industry isn't as home-grown as it once was. Mini and Rolls-Royce are owned by BMW, Jaguar and Land Rover are owned by Tata, Bentley is owned by Volkswagen, and even Lotus is owned by Geely. Aston Martin is one of the few companies to still design and manufacturer cars in the UK, even though many of the company's models are now powered by German-built AMG motors.

Recently, Aston has been focusing on its global reach as the aftermath of Brexit looms. To that end, Aston Martin Lagonda has opened its first design studio located outside of the UK.

The new design studio is located in Shanghai, China, in a partnership with Tongji University, one of the world's leading universities for the study of design and innovation.

Marek Reichman, Aston Martin Executive Vice President, and Chief Creative Officer said: "The first project of the new studio will be a collaboration on future interior designs for our sports cars and our first SUV, which will be launching in 2019."

This means the upcoming Aston Martin Varekai SUV may have a very different interior than what is found in today's Aston Martin sports cars. We know the Varekai will likely be powered by the 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8 from AMG and will easily be Aston Martin's best-selling model.

It is unclear whether the new design center will also work on the upcoming all-electric SUV from the Lagonda brand, though this seems like a strong possibility. We are certainly excited to see some new interior design ideas from Aston Martin.

In our review of the DB11, we found some of the touch-sensitive controls to be a bit annoying, though the rest of the interior felt incredibly upscale. Some people may object to Aston Martin outsourcing design work to China, but as long as the brand keeps its impeccable style, we don't really care where the designing takes place.