Aston Martin DBX
Is Aston’s first family car as practical as you’d hope?
HOW MUCH ‘UTILITY’ DOES THE DBX have? SUVS such as this are, after all, designed and created to perform multiple tasks as a luxury, sports (in the loosest sense) and do-anything-and-everythingrequired-by-a-family car. Those first two remits KY21 JYD has regularly demonstrated it is more than capable of fulfilling. From thousand-mile commuting weeks to 1000-mile weekends to Le Mans, with plenty of enjoyable, more interesting and quicker miles in between, it’s been a perfect companion when you simply want to cover large distances in a short space of time in as much comfort as possible.
When designing the DBX’S platform, the intention was to maximise the interior space as much as possible, for occupants and for storage, both of which it has nailed. The man who oversaw the DBX’S design, 6ft 4in Marek Reichman, was insistent that he should be able to ‘sit behind himself’ in the rear of the car without his knees up around his ears and his head cocked at 45 degrees to avoid the roofline. Those who have joined me in the DBX have been as grateful to Marek for the interior space and ergonomics – the low floor makes for great rear-seat comfort – as I have for the attention to detail ex-head of vehicle engineering Matt Becker put into how the car drives.
The packaging isn’t all perfect; the first ‘family car’ from a company that has only ever built sports cars is always going to have a few headscratching bits. Such as the internal tailgate release that’s hidden beneath the floating centre console (though the huge storage tray below the console is inspired) and the parcel shelf that doesn’t retract and so needs to be removed if you want to carry anything tall in the boot. Rectifications to both are said to be on the to-do list for the facelift.
On a topical note, the 4-litre turbocharged V8 could really do with Mercedes’ latest cylinder deactivation software. On current DBXS it only operates at very low, close-to-tickover rpm, therefore having minimal effect, but when people are piling into fuel stations to fill up bin liners with unleaded, being able to stretch the range a little more beyond 300 miles would be comforting.
More seriously, Aston Martin has been in touch to say that our time with JYD is pretty much up. I just hope that I can find enough fuel to be out when they call…
Date acquired April 2021 Total mileage 10,234 Mileage this month 1045 Costs this month £0 mpg this month 19.9