Moments to savour

We’re on the forecourt of the super-swank Maybourne Riviera hotel, breathing in the kind of views only birds and hang gliders are afforded. A few hundred metres below, nestling up against an impossibly azure Mediterranean Sea, is the billionaire fairyland of Monaco, all palatial superyachts and multi-million-euro apartments resembling, from our elevated spot, the planet’s most expensive Lego set.

Beside us – so close we can see our squashed reflection in the flanks of its Iridescent Emerald bodywork – is the Aston Martin DB12, a heart-melting piece of automotive art that blends elegance and attitude onto the same scintillating canvas.

And, completing the tableau – directly behind the show car, grafted onto a dry-stone wall in large, silver lettering – the words The World’s First Super Tourer. (Translation: something spicier than a traditional grand tourer, closer to a supercar.) Amid so much visual theatre, deliberately staged-managed for the gathered media, you just hope – for Aston’s sake – the DB12 can live up to the hype.