ISN’T she lovely?

Priced from a fiver under £200,000, this little beauty is Aston Martin’s Vanquish Volante, the drop-top version of its high-end super GT.

Alongside its coupe sibling, launched to worldwide acclaim last autumn, the Vanquish Volante, which was unveiled on Wednesday, sits at the pinnacle of the luxury British car maker’s sports car line-up.

Instantly becoming one of the most beautiful cars in its class, Vanquish Volante crucially retains the coupe’s dynamic character and sporting capability.

It boasts the same new AM11 6.0-litre V12 engine as the coupe and the same blistering performance figures, meaning the 0-62 mph sprint is despatched in just 4.1 seconds, while the top speed stands at 183 mph.

Vanquish Volante is the first fully carbon fibre-skinned Volante in the brand’s 100-year history, while also being the stiffest Volante body structure yet created by the engineering team at Aston Martin’s global HQ in Gaydon, Warwickshire.

The new car’s triple-skin lightweight fabric roof takes just 14 seconds to fold.

Announcing the arrival of the Vanquish Volante Aston Martin CEO Dr Ulrich Bez said: “This car is what luxury super GT driving is all about. Great performance, fantastic style and exhilarating Volante motoring in one superb package.

“Aston Martin is celebrating 100 years of excellence in 2013, and the arrival of this new sports car – our ultimate Volante – underlines that our mission to make the next 100 years even more successful is starting perfectly.”

“Aston Martin Design Director Marek Reichman added: “Vanquish Volante is a sports car, of course, but more even than that it is the ultimate Volante. A car which follows a long line of elegant Aston Martin convertibles, this super GT is sculpted to convey sophistication as much as raw power.”

Deliveries are expected to begin in late 2013.