GENEVA MOTOR SHOW: Aston Vantage GT3 and Vulcan

No wonder we got confused there for a minute. We heard conflicting, early information about Aston Martin bringing different cars to the Geneva motor show on March 3 and, with Aston’s limited resources, figured it couldn’t possibly be bringing two.

But it is.

The British brand will not only show a limited-edition Vantage-based GT3 so radical that it will blur the lines between road and race cars but, for any youngling with poster space on the wall, there will also be the Vulcan hypercar.

Limited to just 100 units globally, the Vantage GT3 has been tested for nearly six months already, with most of that testing coming from Aston’s trackside facility at the Nurburgring.

Aston says carbon-fibre and aluminium bodywork will help to strip its "most performance focused road-going Vantage" of about 100kg compared to the Vantage V12 S and it will be faster and stronger in every respect.

Reducing weight to 1565kg are a carbon-fibre bonnet and front wings, lithium ion race-derived battery, carbon-fibre door casings, optional carbon-fibre roof and optional polycarbonate rear window and rear quarter windows.

The V12-powered coupe will also adopt a radically huge rear wing and a deeper, multi-holed front splitter to balance its aero forces.

The 6.0-litre V12 will get more power -- at around the 450kW mark thanks to magnesium inlet manifolds with revised geometry, a lightweight magnesium torque tube and a full titanium exhaust system -- and the six-speed transmission will be tweaked for faster, more masculine shifts.

Aston expects the rear-drive GT3 to hit 100km/h in 3.5 seconds, but thinks people will be more besotted by the way it corners.

It carries over plenty of lessons from the GT3 race car, including its wider bodywork to hide the larger wheels and Michelin Pilot Super Sport tyres. The front and rear tracks are also wider than the standard Vantage and the brakes will be carbon-ceramic as standard.

Don’t expect too many luxuries inside the GT3 though, because it will carry carbon-shelled Alcantara-clad seats with four-point harnesses and a full carbon-fibre centre stack with touch-sensitive control array, but no air-conditioning.

“Motorsport is in our blood at Aston Martin," said Aston Martin CEO Andy Palmer. "The Vantage is the car we campaign in top level sports car racing around the world and so it seems only fitting that we offer an exclusive, limited edition Vantage that expertly fuses our motorsport know-how with our road car prowess.

"The Vantage GT3 special-edition is an uncompromising example of our design and engineering expertise and I’m sure the 100 owners who secure one of these cars will savour every second behind the wheel; whether on the road or on the track.”

The Vulcan, meantime, is Aston pushing further down the track-specialist line, creating its own version of Ferrari’s FXX K and McLaren’s P1 GTR.

Though Aston has released little on the car other than its name and this teaser video, it’s thought that the Vulcan will adopt the One-77’s version of the family V12 to deliver around 560kW of power.

Without the depth of technical resource of Ferrari or McLaren (or even Lamborghini), Aston Martin’s will be the most mechanically conventional of the track-only hypercar genre.

Stand by for details.