LONG-TERMERS
Can Aston’s debut SUV impress as much as a long-term proposition as it does on a brief encounter? There’s only one way to find out…
A new Aston Martin has joined our fleet, as has an oft-overlooked Vauxhall. Meanwhile our Clio 182 has been restored to good health and the modified 993 Carrera gets an expert second opinion
ASTON MARTIN CEO TOBIAS Moers claims he wouldn’t have accepted Lawrence Stroll’s offer to run the embattled British firm if it didn’t have the DBX in its portfolio. ‘Coming here it was really impressive how well the DBX was established,’ he told evo. ‘For me, with just sports cars in the product line there is no future.’ Ouch, Mclaren…
We too have been impressed by the first non-sports car to come out of Gaydon. The DBX’S blend of GT sophistication and refinement combined with those traditional Aston Martin performance attributes allows it to live up to the claim of being the first sport utility vehicle that has a genuine focus on the word ‘sport’ above all else. But what impresses on a media launch drive or week-long road test doesn’t always translate into a car you’d want to live with. It’s why Cayman owners ask us to provide luggage space stats each time we compare the Porsche with Alpine’s A110. So we now have a DBX on our long-term fleet. A DBX we specced, or rather I did, which is why it’s grey with a black interior, although Aston Martin’s configurator calls the exterior colour Magnetic Silver. That’s the issue with ordering a new car via a configurator: you’re never 100 per cent certain you’re making the right choices, especially when it comes to paint. This is why I spend just as much time on used car sites looking at pictures of real cars to get a better understanding of the colour the configurator claims to be showing.
Why dark silver? I nearly went for Minotaur Green, but I couldn’t find a ‘real’ example to compare it with so played it safe instead. And I’m glad I did. Magnetic Silver suits a car of the DBX’S size and design so well, and in the late spring light it pops beautifully. It hides the dirt well, too.
The 22-inch ‘Ribbon’ wheels have earned me no end of flak from design critic Jordan Katsianis (evo’s digital web editor, who