WILD LIFE

“THIS IS A LANDMARK CAR FOR AN UPSCALE BRAND”

There’s a rhinoceros in the rearview camera. The parking sensors are having a light digital panic, and I’m suddenly rehearsing the phone call I may have to make to Aston Martin, though there’s probably no tick box for ‘impaled by a rhino horn’ on the insurance form. Luckily, I happen to be in Aston’s newest and most rugged variant, the DBX SUV, so at least there’s a fair bit of metal in which to hide. A comforting thought, right up until one of the glorious beasts – her name is Mirijam, apparently – ambles around to the front of the car and snorts softly, the kind of bass infrasound that reverberates in your chest and makes you want to go and hide in a cave, light a fire and start furiously sharpening sticks. Mirijam is a big girl, she’s a foot away, and her horn – which must be approaching about two feet from base to tip, skims the bonnet. I forget to breathe. Mirijam, by all accounts, weighs more than the car.

Obviously, this situation is not normal, and probably requires explanation. Upon being offered Aston’s new sports utilitarian for a scant 36 hours, I decided that in honour of the company’s newly minted practical side, I’d go and engage in equally practical things. But this is a landmark car for a committedly upscale brand, the first SUV in its century plus of history, which means that those ‘things’ needed to be… extraordinary. So what might