Aston Martin was already facing significant challenges even before the pandemic, but with COVID-19 ravaging the planet, the English sports car maker was recently forced to make 500 job cuts as part of a GBP10 million cost-cutting plan just to keep itself afloat.

The company’s position certainly looks bleak now, but as they say, there’s always a silver lining – the brand recently received a cash injection worth more than GBP500 million thanks to new investor Lawrence Stroll. As part of a management shake-up, the company also recently snapped up Mercedes-AMG chief Tobias Moers to replace Andy Palmer as Aston Martin CEO.

In the company’s recent first-quarter financial report, new executive chairman Lawrence Stroll said that with the resumption of operations at its new St Athan plant, the Aston Martin DBX is still on track for deliveries this summer.

In the same report, Stroll also revealed that customer demand for the Porsche Cayenne rival is strong extending into 2021, and the company is already planning to “unveil future derivatives starting from 2021″.

Speaking to Australian title GoAuto in March, executive vice-president and chief creative officer Marek Reichman teased the prospect of a DBX with a sleeker coupe-like silhouette, as well as a stretched wheelbase version with possibly two extra seats.

Reichman said: “We’ll never go down [in size], but maybe it’s less capacity. So the wheelbase may remain the same, but maybe the box shrinks a little bit. Because in terms of downsizing, we’re never going to be a Macan versus a Cayenne.

“The Cayenne/DBX [position] is core, so downsizing [means] silhouette; upsizing is relatively simple, and that’s a potential … you could do both off that platform.”

Late March this year, the company also unveiled their new in-house designed V6 engine, slated to make it’s first production appearance on the forthcoming Valhalla. The hybrid powertrain codenamed TM01 is expected to replace the Mercedes-AMG V8 engines found in other Aston Martins in stages, including the DBX.

With such a heavy investment Aston Martin poured into creating the all-new DBX platform, the firm would likely want to employ it as much as possible on future products. Insider sources suggest that the new platform would cover more bases than previous models do.