It seems inconceivable that Aston Martin would decide now is a good time to bring a £1.2m car to market, but here it is.

These are the first official images of 'Project One-77', the bespoke, limited edition supercar that Aston has been teasing us with for the past few months via a handful of darkened computer renderings.

The black headlamps suggest this is a clay model, but there's little doubt that this is how the finished car will look - despite the fact that no two of the 77 cars will be the same. For a £200,000 deposit, owners will be invited to get involved in the entire building process for their new car, with only certain fixed elements like the engine, drivetrain and carbon chassis not open to debate. Presumably the exterior styling is by and large off limits too, otherwise these pictures would be somewhat irrelevant.

Aston calls the One-77 a 'work of art', although that may be just to deflect attention from the fact that it's about to release an ozone-melting 700bhp V12 mega-car onto the market during an economic recession. Regardless, Aston claims it has already had 100 genuine expressions of interest, so there are unlikely to be any leftovers gathering dust at the maker's Gaydon plant.

And credit where it's due - to our eyes the One-77 is the most stunning representation of Aston's generic styling ever. There's a hint of Mercedes McLaren SLR in the side vents, and the gaping front grille is lifted straight from the Zagato DB7, but this thing looks serious about the business of going fast. Shame then that most of them will probably end up crawling along Kensington side streets next year.

Mark Nichol - 29 Oct 2008