[Auto] Aston Martin DBX

[HiTLeR]

 

When it comes to luxury goods, image is everything, and few car manufacturers can claim to have an image as strong as Aston Martin. Not only is it consistently voted one of the coolest brands in the world, but it also has James Bond on its client list. Enough said.

Or is it? You see, despite having a reputation to die for, Aston has gone bankrupt no fewer than seven times since it was founded back in 1913, hence its decision to enter the booming luxury SUV market with this, the all-new Aston Martin DBX. 

Now, before you throw your hands up in the air in disgust at the very thought of an SUV wearing the Aston Martin wings on its nose, let’s just consider for a second that not everyone is in the market for a two-door GT car. For many, a car that combines the performance and luxury you’d expect from the brand with space and practicality that you wouldn’t, is a compelling prospect. The DBX even offers genuine off-road ability, more about which later. 

 

Now of course, Aston Martin hasn’t exactly made things easy for itself, arriving at the party well after the VW Group turned up with the Bentley Bentayga, Lamborghini Urus and Porsche Cayenne. But it's used that time wisely, developing an all-new aluminium chassis specifically for the DBX, something that its engineers claim benefits the car both dynamically and aesthetically. And, on that latter point, we’d argue that the designers have managed to incorporate a number of Aston’s classic styling cues in a way that looks entirely natural – it could be argued that certain rivals have struggled to do this with their first SUVs.

The rest of the car carries over very little from Aston’s wider model range; it's powered by a 4.0-litre turbocharged V8 sourced from Mercedes-AMG, but not quite the same one that you’ll find in the DB11 and Vantage. It’s effectively the same motor that appears in the Mercedes-AMG E63 S super saloon, and it comes packaged with the same ‘active’ four-wheel drive system and torque-vectoring rear differential as that model, too. V12 and  plug-in hybrid versions are also expected to follow.

So, can an SUV really ‘feel’ and behave like a true Aston Martin? That's what we'll be exploring over the next few pages. And if  your interest is piqued, even if you can't quite stretch to the DBX, head over to see how much you could save on a new SUV with our New Car Buying service.