NO, REALLY

THE DBX MIGHT BE THE BEST ASTON MARTIN EVER

- CONNER GOLDEN

One of the biggest potential laughs in automotive-themed time travel would be to set your dial to the mid-1990s—the beginning of Aston Martin’s Ford era—and roll up to Aston’s old Bloxham, U.K., factory in a contemporary Explorer SUV. Posing as a FoMoCo executive, in your ill-fitting suit, you’d round up a cluster of Aston’s finest engineers. “I want you to make that,” you’d say with a smile, pointing at the Explorer, “handle, ride, look, and sound like that,” swinging your finger over to a DB7 in the car park.

Thankfully, back in the present, the British automaker developed its actual first-ever SUV, the 2021 Aston Martin DBX, on its own terms, unbeholden to any looming corporate overlords. And the result breathes life into our ridiculous fantasy: The DBX is a crossover SUV that damn near handles, rides, looks, and sounds like today’s Vantage.

After a week spent driving the DBX on the road and at our test track, it’s obvious Aston dug deep to create its SUV. That’s a good thing, considering this is one of the biggest leaps the boutique automaker has ever made. Aston’s not particularly well known for fat budgets, and its development of an SUV on a proprietary platform with such attention to detail and a well-sorted chassis is nothing short of a leather-lined miracle.

We’re sure Aston’s technical partner, Mercedes-Benz, would have been tickled pink to license or supply one of its many SUV platforms, but as in the cases of the Vantage and DB11 V8, Aston handled the basic architecture while helping itself to the 4.0-liter twin-turbo V-8, nine-speed automatic transmission, 4Matic all-wheel-drive system, electronic architecture, and infotainment from the Mercedes and AMG warehouses.