All car makers do their level best to ensure new models are not photographed before they’re put on sale.

Pre-production mules that go on the road are fitted with fancy dress panels and comedy moustaches. Often one car maker will fit badges from another to throw automotive paparazzi off the scent.

So imagine Aston Martin’s dismay earlier this year when Corgi, the toy company licensed to make diecast models of the company’s cars, revealed the precise shape of the forthcoming DBS at the Toy Fair. After a few hours the toy was hurriedly removed, but not before pictures were published all over the interweb.

I don’t know why Aston was bothered, because apart from a few skirts it looks pretty much the same as the DB9, which looks the same as the Vanquish, which looks very similar to the Vantage. Which isn’t that far removed from the DB7, which is almost identical to the new XK from Aston’s sister company Jaguar.

Now let’s be clear on this: the entire Aston Martin range is drop-dead gorgeous. Picking a winner from this lot on looks alone is like being Brad Pitt and having to choose between Angelina, Jennifer and all the other Hollywood superbabes that doubtless fall at his feet. But like Hollywood superbabes, you have to move with the times. Because what’s perceived to be classic coupé styling today won’t work in the future. Who wants to look at Marilyn Monroe’s fat arse now? No one. Not now we have Scarlett Johansson to gawp at.

With coupés, it’s nice if there’s a bit of quality, and a bit of poke, and some space for heads and legs in the back, but it’s not the end of the world if none of these things are included. A point made very clearly by the success of Peugeot’s agonisingly beautiful but dynamically backward 406 Coupé. And hammered home by the forthcoming arrival of Alfa Romeo’s Brera. I have not driven this car yet but I do know it will cost £25,000, which is a simply enormous lump of cash for a car that takes 8.5 wheezing seconds to crawl from 0 to 60. But I would happily sink to my knees on a carpet of broken glass and turn tricks behind King’s Cross railway station if it meant I could have one.

Motoring history is littered with the carcasses of cars from companies that just never got this. The Volvo 262 C was a well made and safe coupé that sold in the ones and twos because it had the aesthetic appeal of a wellington boot. And the technically advanced Subaru XT died a long, painful death because it appeared to have been drawn by someone who was mad.

That’s why the Corvette is in my list of top choices. Partly because it’s surprisingly nice to drive but also because Chevrolet knows that to keep it good looking, it has to keep changing it. Aston needs to remember that. Because, let’s be honest, no one is buying a DB9 for the way it always starts . . .