Technical partnerships between competing brands is becoming a key part of surviving the crazy ups and downs of the automotive realm. We've seen it with Toyota and Subaru, Toyota and BMW, Renault and Nissan, and so on. To date, we've had yet to see a splash of a deal between two luxury automakers, but that is now history, as Daimler, AMG and Aston Martin have entered an interesting quid pro quo deal.

Now, the partnership between Daimler->ke187 and Aston Martin->ke13 has been through the rumormill before. At one point a rumor also incorrectly claimed that Aston Martin's future depended on this possible partnership with Daimler. Well, that turned out to be untrue, of course, but this deal will certainly speed things along for the British sports car builder.

Daimler will receive up to 5-percent, non-voting shares in Aston Martin without cash consideration in return for helping build bespoke V-8 engines that will see use future Aston Martin models. The goal of these new engines is to deliver high performance and improved fuel efficiency. The shares will be awarded in stages that correspond to the progress made in this project, and the shares will allow Daimler to observe Aston Martin operations, but they will not have any direct control over Aston.

Daimler will be the fourth company to own Aston Martin shares -- the other three are Prime Wagon, Adeem Investment and Investindustrial. Unlike the other three, Daimler also plans to start an additional cooperation to supply of electric components, plus a few other areas of cooperation that will be announced in the future.

Click past the jump to read more about the revived Lagonda - one of the first models rumored to get the new V-8 engine.

2016 Aston Martin Lagonda

Aston Martin unveiled thel Lagonda SUV concept back in 2009, and since then the production version has seen its fair share of ups and downs. There were moments were the model was believed to be offered as an SUV, others as a sedan, while other times it was rumored it will never happen at all.

Still, Aston Martin said earlier this year that a possible Lagonda SUV could be the perfect way to boost sales on markets like China where large cars are a must. So, a production version Lagonda SUV should happen just in time for the 2016 model year.

Considering the new partnership we expect the Lagonda to be powered by this newly developed V-8 engine and not by the rumored V-12 engine.