Photo of the day: the last nine Aston Martin DB9s

That's it. Those are the last nine Aston Martin DB9s to be built. A moment of silence then, for what is quite simply, one of the most breathtakingly gorgeous cars to have ever graced our tiny planet.

A simple tweet from Aston Martin last week confirmed as such: "Farewell to an icon. The last nine Aston Martin DB9s are now ready for final inspection."

The DB9 remains of course, a signature of Aston's post-2000 renaissance. Now replaced by the DB11 (itself another marker of Aston's growing confidence and expertise), the DB9 might not have been the sharpest nor fastest of its contemporaries, but then those are very objective measures.

Subjectively, just look at it. Yes, it's now very old indeed in the hyper-realised world of supercars - the first DB9s appeared in 2004 - but the shape, grace and coolness contained within that body are all timeless.

The run-out GT edition DB9s above - which we've driven here - were the pinnacle of the range, and we surmised as such: "Whichever side you come down on that debate, you can’t deny the world is a better place for having the DB9 GT in it."