“As an engineer, it’s genuinely exciting to get a feel for the car you’re working to create. DBX is a very different kind of Aston Martin, but we will be testing it in all conditions and across all terrains to ensure it delivers a driving experience worthy of the wings badge.”
The odds are it will go well but what will it look like? That’s been the big challenge for companies like Porsche, Bentley, Lamborghini and Rolls-Royce as each in turn has ventured down the SUV route for the first time. Can you really have a bulky, high-riding five-door hatch that captures the sporting elegance of an Aston sports car?
The pictures and video released by Aston today aren’t much help in knowing the answer to that. The car is wearing its prototype wrap which makes for a particularly effective disguise.
What we can say is that it doesn’t look anywhere near as tall and bluff-fronted as Bentley Bentayga or Rolls Cullinan (or Range Rover), but neither does it appear as aggressively rakish as the Lamborghini Urus. The traditionally-shaped Aston grille outlined in red is the only obvious clue to which manufacturer it has come from, that and perhaps the Vantage-slender headlights. The window shapes, air intakes, feature lines and body ‘jewellery’ are all effectively hidden.
Inevitably neither does it appear much like the DBX design concept we saw at the Geneva Motor Show in 2015. That was a two-door and looked it. It was a also a four-seater (production DBX will surely have room for five) and was purely electrically powered. The DBX will get a battery electric drivetrain at some point – it is after all being built in Aston’s new assembly plant in St Athan in the Vale of Glamorgan which is to be the brand’s “home of electrification”. But to start with at least, there’ll be a big and – judging by the video sound effects – booming petrol motor under that high bonnet.