Ed Moran, interim president of Aston Martin of the Americas, anticipates that the DBX will most like4 Dec 2020 17:31
NEW YORK: When asked to imagine a British car, most people would picture a buzzy MG or Triumph roadster, or a stately Jaguar or Rolls-Royce sedan. But with SUVs, vans and pickups now accounting for nearly three-quarters of new vehicle sales in the United States, manufacturers in Britain — some familiar, some unexpected — have followed the market.
Aston Martin, the storied sports carmaker, has just begun delivering its first sport utility vehicle, the DBX, to American customers. Bentley, known for rarefied luxury, has just released a highly revised version of its SUV, the Bentayga. And England’s original SUV manufacturer, Land Rover, has reintroduced its rugged Defender nameplate, which had been absent from this market for nearly 25 years.
Not surprisingly, these vehicles have drawn considerable attention in the States. Bentley’s chief executive, Adrian Hallmark, said interest in the Bentayga, as measured in “website visits and configurations and hand-raises for further information was about four times what we saw” at the launch of the Flying Spur sedan in January. He believes that Bentayga sales will match those of “our three other cars, combined” — up to 5,000 or so in a year.
Similarly, Ed Moran, interim president of Aston Martin of the Americas, anticipates that the DBX will most likely double the brand’s global production.
“The vast majority of our customer base already owns an SUV,” Moran said. “And I think we’ve seen, in the high-luxe SUV segment, for our competitors who have an SUV, how much it makes up of their portfolio. We see a correlation with DBX in terms of the role it will play in the Aston brand.”
While Land Rover already produces a half-dozen luxury SUVs, Joe Eberhardt, Jaguar Land Rover North America CEO, expects the United States “to be the biggest market, globally, for Defender,” with sales “around the volumes we see for Range Rover or Range Rover Sport.” Together, those vehicles account for half the brand’s U.S. output.
From behind the wheel, these vehicles fulfill their missions. The Aston, whose base price starts at $176,900, is the sportiest, with a 542-horsepower, twin-turbocharged 4.0-liter V-8 engine. Although it weighs nearly 5,000 pounds, on back roads it feels nearly as nimble as the brand’s Vantage or DB11 sports car, though it’s less afraid of a little sand and gravel.
Sadly, the infotainment system — purchased, like the engine, from Mercedes-Benz, which owns a 5% stake in Aston Martin — is generations behind and already outmoded. Fortunately, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, which mirror the functions of your phone on the vehicle’s screen, make up for the infotainment system’s irrelevance, and the DBX’s alluring shape and generous helpings of leather cement its appeal.
While more luxurious and technologically sophisticated — with an advanced infotainment setup, its own 542-horsepower 4.0-liter twin-turbo V-8, an alluring cabin layered in burled wood and knurled metal, and a potent all-wheel-
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