Diet Another Day
ASTON MARTIN DBX
An Aston for all seasons
ABOVE ALL ELSE, THIS IS AN ASTON MARTIN. If you’ve put 158 big ones down, you surely care more than a little about driving, so you’ll be itching to prod the glowing starter button. The 550-hp twin-turbo 4.0-litre V8 wakes with a rumble and the moment you set off, you appreciate the absorbent ride quality and fluent steering. The DBX breathes down the road with a pliancy and flow the others cannot match. Aston’s chunky steering wheel design leaves much to be desired, but the feel it imparts is surprisingly delicate and accurate for such a large car.
It’s strange to mark an Aston for practicality over performance, but this car’s purpose demands it
The bandwidth of Aston’s SUV is, perhaps, its greatest achievement: in GT mode it’ll saunter and change up to an epically tall ninth gear, shutting down one bank of cylinders at a leisurely cruise, yet the AMG engine barks orders if you stab the throttle or slide into Sport or Sport+ modes, forcing the active exhaust baffles open. The rear-biased torque distribution can catch you out in the wet, especially on the performance-biased Pirelli P Zero tyres (we’d recommend the optional all-seasons rubber for daily use). It’s not quite as comfortable and quiet as the serene Bentley but the DBX’s Venn diagram spreads wide across relaxed Bentayga and athletic Urus qualities, even if it can’t match either extreme.
So, yes, it’s very much an Aston Martin and a very good one, but it also has to succeed against the long-established criteria of the premium SUV category — living the high life on four high-rise wheels. Aston have succumbed nearly two decades after Porsche first set the cat among the pigeons with the 2002 Cayenne. But where Zuffenhausen took a 911 blueprint and set the
