WHILE LOS ANGELENOS are getting geeked about the Aston Martin DB American Roadster 1 debuting next week in Southern California at the Los Angeles auto show, bigger news comes a week later in Detroit in the form of a concept we hear will signal the future of Aston’s third model line.

Until then, however, we have to make do with looking at photos of a prototype of the third line, the so-called baby Aston, known internally as AM305. The Porsche 911 fighter comes from design chief Henrik Fisker’s pen and hearkens back to David Brown-era DB4 and DB5 shapes, which may ultimately earn the car the DB5 moniker.

The front-engined sports car will likely get a 400-hp version of Jaguar’s 4.4-liter V8 and six-speed manual or five-speed automatic transmissions. Production of up to 1500 cars per year gets started in 2004, with pricing in the $100,000 range.