ASTON Martin has chosen the Shanghai Auto Show to debut the luxury British supercar company's high-performance brand AMR.

Reflecting Aston Martin's racing pedigree, the AMR models take technology and inspiration from motorsport to amplify the sporting prowess present across the model range.

Aston Martin says the AMR offers higher performance, sharper dynamics and more powerful design language and takes the Gaydon company's road cars to new and extremes.

Making its Asia debut, the Rapide AMR represents the first tier of AMR, giving the four-door sports car a comprehensive combination of power, chassis and styling upgrades, plus a spectacular new interior treatment.

The Rapide AMR being shown in Shanghai, and the Vantage AMR Pro shown at the 2017 Geneva show in March, are both confirmed for production - the Rapide as a run of only 210 cars and the Vantage in an extremely limited series of no more than seven cars.

This is the start of a programme that will eventually see an AMR version of every model in the Aston Martin range".

AMR Pro is the pinnacle; an uncompromising demonstration of AMR's ‘Track to Tarmac' philosophy whereby race technology is transferred to road cars.

Aston Martin president and chief executive, Dr Andy Palmer said: "AMR is something we have wanted to bring to fruition for some time.

"Cars such as the Vantage GT8 and Vantage GT12 confirmed that our customers love raw, race-bred models, but we also knew there was an opportunity to create cars that offer a sharper performance focus but stop short of those truly hard-core, special series models. With the AMR brand we have the perfect platform to deliver both."

Aston also took the wraps off a special V8 Vantage S, known as the British Edition, at the Shanghai Show. The car is the latest of Aston Martin's bespoke Q models and is being aimed specifially at the Chinese market.