Aston Martin is casting a bigger net. If you want to sell cars in the U.S., you can’t do so from an ivory tower; the trick for the company is to appeal more generally, but not lose the cachet of the name. The DBX crossover, due on sales floors in 2019, will compete with more mainstream competition in the American marketplace, while an expanded customization niche, and supercar and hypercar development, continue the tradition of exclusivity. It’s a position of equipoise that, handled well, will certainly pay off.

And so, coming soon: the Tom Brady/Aston Martin connection. The iconic British automaker has teamed up with American football’s current iconic quarterback for a new campaign focused on its DB11 model, hoping to carve an inroad into the North American luxury-sports car market with aggressive advertising that merges the company’s distinctly British history with more populist U.S. sensibilities.

The new DB11 will be equipped with the strongest DB-series engine yet developed: a 5.2L twin turbo V12 that produces 600HP and 516 lb-ft of torque, a monster which Aston designed themselves. The transmission features four shift modes, shift times down to 130 milliseconds, and what Aston terms Adaptive Drive Recognition, which tailors shift points to an individual driver’s particular driving style. Like other new Astons, the DB11 is spectacularly beautiful, maintaining the company’s reputation for building cars with long, fluid lines and a strong visual identity. This is a car acutely designed for broad spectrum appeal that keeps a foot squarely in company tradition. Making a high-profile sports team hero like Tom Brady the model’s American figurehead is dramatic, but certainly not rash.

Although, for now, details of the Brady-Aston connection are scant. Aston’s marketing gurus are currently building expectation via engineered mystery and viral gossip: seeding, and testing the waters, too.