Aston Martin roars back into profit for the first quarter

Aston Martin has posted a first-quarter profit for the first time in a decade, the sports car maker said.

The company made a pre-tax profit of £5.9m for the three months to March following strong sales of its new DB11 model launched late last year.

Revenues more than doubled to £188m in the quarter.

Aston Martin, which has made an annual loss for each of the past six years, was sold by Ford in 2007 to Italian and Kuwaiti investment firms.

The company has gone bankrupt seven times in its history.

Aston Martin sold just 3,687 cars last year, but hopes that its latest models will increase sales by more than 30% in 2017.

The Aston Martin Rapide AMR on display at the Geneva motor show in March.

"The amount of customers who are buying these cars... has doubled year on year," said Mark Wilson, the chief financial officer.

"We're now in an area and an environment where we are generating demand in excess of supply."

The company said it was still planning to enter the electric car market. Last year, it announced a tie-up with LeEco, the Chinese backer of the electric car start-up Faraday Future.