Here's a Tour of the 2021 Aston Martin DBX Ultra-Luxury SUV

this is the 2021 aston martin dbx and it's the latest ultra luxury suv i say that because we've already seen luxury suvs from rolls-royce bentley lamborghini maserati porsche and basically everyone else but this is the first suv in the history of aston martin and today i'm going to take you on a tour of it i've borrowed this dbx from aston martin newport beach which is a beautiful dealership with a beautiful location here in newport beach california right on the pacific coast highway next to the ocean aston martin newport beach is taking orders for the dbx right now before it goes on sale this summer you can check them out by clicking the link in the description below so let's talk dbx when the dbx goes on sale it'll start around 190 thousand dollars which is pretty expensive though it makes it a bit cheaper than the lamborghini eris which starts around 205 thousand dollars the dbx uses a 4 liter turbo v8 from mercedes amg it makes about 540 horsepower about 515 pound-feet of torque this car do 0-60 in 4.3 seconds on its way to a top speed of about 180 miles an hour these numbers put the dbx a bit behind the competition as the lamborghini urus has 640 horsepower and the porsche cayenne turbo is faster than the dbx for about 70 grand less but aston has never been about the exact numbers it's about the craftsmanship and the wow factor that you can't get with a porsche or a lamborghini suv that's based on an audi so today i'm going to take you on a tour of the dbx i'm going to show you all of the quirks and features of aston martin's first ever suv unfortunately this is a pre-production model meaning the chassis and the driving experience aren't yet tweaked to production specs there are some other pre-production details that won't make the final car that means i'm not able to drive it or give it a dug score but i will report back on that stuff as soon as i can for now let's just start with the tour of the dbx all right i'm going to start the quirks and features of the dbx by discussing its styling and i have to say i really like how this thing looks a very clean sweeping flowing design very beautiful precisely the kind of gorgeousness that you'd expect from aston martin it is not as daring as the sports cars the db11 the vanquish but other automakers have tried daring with their suvs and they generally get called ugly the bentley bentayga i'm not a big fan of how the ers looks so aston martin kind of played it safe with a more beautiful clean simple design and it looks pretty nice and next up onto the quirks and features one of the most important is that the dbx still has aston martin's trademark swan hinge doors what that means is when you open up the front door it opens at an angle upwards all of aston martin's sports cars do this and i guess the theory is they do it so the doors can clear curves but it also just looks really cool when the doors are open they're not just flat the cool thing about the dbx though is that it also has swan hinge doors in the back so you open it up and the door opens upwards just a little bit you can see it has kind of an angle away from the pavement it's just a cool distinctive thing that aston martin does now to me the coolest thing about the swan hinge doors is the fact that in order to make them do this they have to put a hydraulic in the door hinge and that means when you open it you can pretty much set the door anywhere you want and it will stay put and in the back you can really see this hydraulic work it's very different very much more complicated than your standard door hinge but it's a really cool feature and it's nice to see that aston martin has integrated it into the dbx including in the back doors and next up another cool quirk on the outside of the dbx is this little lighting assembly down here this is the running lights and you can see when the car is running it's just your regular led running lights like most cars have but it's integrated into this space which is a distinctive look and here's the cool thing when you put on the turn signal the running light disappears and suddenly this is now the turn signal which is also a pretty cool look i like that signal when it's on but the coolest part is that this turn signal running light assembly is designed around a hole in the front bumper and this hole is functional air passes through this hole while you're driving and then it's channeled around into the wheel well where it goes to cool down the brakes so this running light turn signal assembly in the front bumper isn't around a hole just for style but rather a functional one that will keep your brakes cool that is pretty neat but while i really like that turn signal around a functional hole on the front bumper it is the rear lights that are definitely the most interesting lighting aspect of this car for one thing you have this unusual design where you have this thin strip of lights that kind of makes a hump in the middle this is borrowed from the new aston martin vantage it's a very similar look i guess aston martin is intending to tie the suv to the sports car with this rear end lighting design there are some unusual items worth noting with the lights back here one is the rear turn signals which have this thin look on the sides a very cool look if you ask me very upscale and different from other vehicles now another interesting quirk with the rear lighting in this car is the fact that when you turn on the headlights the taillights come on back here but if you look closely you can see it doesn't span across the entire light bar in the back of this car you have some tail light on one side some more on the other side but nothing in the middle which is unusual and it kind of makes the light bar look unfinished so why did they do that well the answer is because the middle section is reserved for the third brake light check this out you push the brakes and the brake lights turn on the sides and in the middle and that big strip in the center is the brake light i think that is a really cool look and very distinctive for the dbx compared to its luxury suv rivals and since we're a round back another thing i like back here the words aston martin printed in the middle of the tailgate in a very classy font leaving absolutely no question as to which luxury suv you're following behind and speaking of this car identifying itself as an aston martin i want to talk about the wings at the front the aston martin emblem at the front of the dbx these are the largest aston martin wings ever fitted to an aston martin apparently the size of the vehicle determines the size of the wings so the vantage has the smallest wings and then the db11 has a larger set of wings and then the dbx being the largest has the largest wings correspond which makes sense but i never knew it and once again speaking of the aston martin brand name the key says it too along the sides it says aston martin in the same luxurious font you have on the back which looks really nice and it looks especially nice when you consider that this is merely the valet key the second key that you would give to valets i don't have the master key but it's even nicer than this one with a glass tip on it which is a true luxury car feature but i have to say even the valet key looks pretty nice for the dbx now on the subject of the key there are a couple of interesting quirks with the dbx key that you might not notice from just a quick glance and looking at it for one thing this little button on the back of the key you can push it and that will pop up the spare key just a little bit now with the spare key popped up then you have a little hoop that you can use to attach this key to your key ring or if you don't want the key on your keyring just push the spare key back down and then it's flat again and it looks its best so there's kind of an additional functional layer to the key if you want it or you can press this little button on the back of the key even harder and just shoot the spare key take a look [Laughter] and next up speaking of the key and getting in the dbx i want to talk about the door handles which are not your typical door handles as you can see they're kind of flat up against the car which creates this sort of simple elegant look as opposed to regular door handles that just stick out from the car but obviously this makes opening the doors a little bit different from a normal car to do so you push the front part of the door handle and then the back part pops out you pull the back part and you open the door actually ends up being pretty simple but before we go inside the dbx there's still a couple of interesting quirks and features to cover out here and i want to start with the glass panel situation on the side in modern suvs it's becoming a popular trend to black out all of the side panels next to the windows on the side of the car to give it a cleaner look so the windows are interrupted okay fine but most automakers use like a plastic piece to black out the panels in between the windows because it's cheaper but that plastic peach doesn't look as good it can get scuffed and so aston martin uses glass this panel in between the windows is not a window but it's still glass just to preserve the glass look down the side of this car so the rear window is blast and the side window is glass then you have the panel in between which is glass and then you have the front window which is glass it is a cool look i'm sure it's harder to make more expensive but it definitely looks better and next up real quick speaking of glass one interesting item with the front glass the windshield is that the windshield wipers fold out from the center instead of working in a parallel direction like most windshield wipers this isn't really that unusual some cars have it it just works better with the dbx's design i guess and next up the last interesting item on the outside of the doors is just how much door opens when you open the doors in most cars you open the doors and then the rocker panels stay in place which can be a problem if you're in a snowy area or if you have a dirty car because your pant legs will hit them and inevitably get dirty the cool thing with the dbx is you open the doors and then the rocker panels the lower part of the door opens with them and that way anything dirty on the door is out of your way when you're climbing in and that means your pant legs won't get dirty like in virtually every other car it's a pretty cool design idea and a neat quirk and next up i'm gonna move on to the interior but i'm gonna start with the cargo area you open up the tailgate and you can see the cargo area back here which is pretty standard in terms of sizing not huge but not small just a regular cargo area for an suv this size nothing particularly interesting or unusual about its dimensions but anyway since i'm in the cargo area a couple of interesting quirks and features back here one these buttons over on the right side of the cargo area that will drop the back seats a lot of cars have this feature but these are the nicest backseat dropper buttons i have ever seen very high quality as you'd expect from aston martin anyway you press those buttons and the back seats fall down that allows you to get more cargo larger items in here unlike some luxury suvs though you can't put the back seats back up from these buttons you have to go around and actually push them back into place next up on the other side of the cargo area you have two more buttons over there you can see arranged the same way as the seat dropper buttons those will use the air suspension to raise or lower the dbx so if you have a heavy item that you can't quite lift into the back of the car you can lower it that will lower the load floor and you can lift it in then when you're done press the upper button it will raise it back into its normal ride height and next up in line with the high quality and luxury craftsmanship you expect from aston martin take a look at the cargo cover which is leather and has contrast stitching in it in most cars you just get a cargo cover to hide your valuables in back in this thing even the cargo cover is beautifully done and beautifully stitched it's fantastic and next up we close the tailgate which is pretty simple you just push a button and then it comes down like basically every other power tailgate and then it latches itself the interesting thing is that the tailgate button is borrowed from mercedes-benz i told you the engine is from mercedes amg and so are a few other prim and switch gear pieces in this car including that tailgate button two other items worth noting back here one is this panel around the exhaust you can see it has all these holes in different shapes which i think looks really cool it kind of emphasizes exactly where the exhaust is makes it look like an explosion unfortunately i can't let you hear the exhaust because this isn't a production ready final version of the dbx the exhaust doesn't sound how it will sound when the dbx goes on sale so we'll just have to wait a few months to hear the exhaust until i actually get behind the wheel and drive this thing and next up we move on to the interior of the dbx where there are a multitude of quirks and features and i'm going to start with simply starting it up you don't have a little switch next to the steering wheel instead there's a button on the top of the dashboard in the center above the infotainment screen you press that and that's how you turn on and off the dbx that's kind of an unusual placement and another strange one is next to the engine starter button you have the gear selector park reverse neutral and drive and that's how you put this car in gear there's no gear lever in the center or on the steering column like basically every other car you just have buttons in the middle of your dashboard and next up speaking of the transmission another notable item with this car is that you have shift paddles of course so you can put it in manual mode and shift gears if you want not uncommon the cool thing though is they're on the steering column so as you turn the steering wheel the paddles stay in place and that way you always know where your up shift and downshift paddles are even if you're in a corner that's how it should be on sporty cars most automakers don't have room to stick the paddles on the column but aston does and so they did and i really like it and next up i want to show you around a few items in this interior that are far more luxurious than they have to be because aston martin is all about luxury and fine craftsmanship for example on the door panels you have speakers just like every car but here the speaker covers are leather none of that aluminum just wouldn't look right with the leather of this interior so you have leather speaker covers very upscale next up how about the fact that the glove box doesn't open with a simple plastic latch like basically every other car instead you push this high quality silver metal button and then the glove box slowly unfurls itself in a luxurious manner this is a far more luxury oriented glovebox movement than basically any other car and next up i want to move on to the sunroof cover in most cars the sunroof cover is cloth or nylon or some mesh that you can kind of see through it never really looks all that great but in the dbx it's alcantara in order to match the material on the rest of the ceiling so that when the sunroof cover is closed it looks like kind of just one big luxurious ceiling it is not easy to make an alcantara sunroof cover that also rolls into place when it retracts but that's exactly what aston martin has done which is pretty cool and next up another unusually luxurious item in this car is the dome lights there's no switch to turn on the dome lights instead you just tap them with your fingers and they turn on just tap on tap off tap on tap off that makes the interior a little cleaner there's no need for an ugly dome light switch and it's just a luxurious touch and next up one more excellent luxury touch in here is the stitching a lot of cars have different colored contrast stitching but this takes it a step further look on the seats you can see the stitching isn't just functional to keep the leather together but it's also beautiful the stitching is part of a design in this car so there's all sorts of excessive unnecessary stitching just to make it look nice which surely complicates production and adds cost but you gotta admit it does look pretty nice and next up i want to move on to some storage items in this car i already showed you how the glove box operates but there's more unusual storage places than that one is in the middle of the center console there's a little hole that's for the key so when you're driving around you don't have to leave the key in your pocket you can stick it right in the middle of the car to let people know i guess that you have a key and a little further down in the center console you can see the cup holders which are pretty self-explanatory you put cups in them but if you don't want to see the cup holders that's fine these blue leather armrest pieces behind the cup holders can be slid forward to cover them which not only makes it look a little bit nicer with the cup holders covered but it allows you to adjust your armrest where it's most comfortable which is a nice little touch and next up another notable storage item in this car is below the center console you can see there's a giant hole here this is for storage you can put whatever you want in here and there's even a spot that's just about the size of a smartphone this is not a wireless charger but like i mentioned this is a pre-production car so maybe it will be in production models but either way you can stick a smartphone there a small bag a purse whatever you want and next we move on to the technology features in the dbx although it's important to mention that aside from the driving experience the most pre-production part of this car is the tech so the infotainment system and the gauge cluster screen they're not fully functional so i won't go through them in great detail but you can see this big hump in the middle of the center console that is the controller for the infotainment system borrowed from mercedes-benz since that's where aston martin gets its infotainment technology and just like many mercedes-benz models you can move this wheel and scroll between various items in the infotainment system and press the little hump and that will click and select an item if that's what you want to do oh it's pretty similar and familiar infotainment use if you've been in a modern mercedes-benz model one thing i really like about the infotainment system even in its pre-production state if you scroll over to the item that allows you to configure vehicle settings which is called vehicle there is an image of an aston martin db5 often automakers who do things like that include this vehicle the one the infotainment system is actually in but i will very much settle for that nice reminder of aston martin heritage now next up below the infotainment screen obviously you have the climate control vents which are very easily movable you move them side to side up and down exactly as you'd expect and a big upgrade from the porsche taikan now below those center climate control events you have the climate controls themselves which stand apart from the infotainment system that's always better to have the climate controls more easily accessible than going into some infotainment system menu there are a couple of interesting items with those climate controls one is the recirculating air button has an image of a dbx not just a random car also notable in this area most of these buttons are just touch sensitive so you don't have to hold them down or push them hard you just tap them and that turns on your climate control buttons including your heated and ventilated seats you just tap them and you can see they come on you tap them again and it changes the amount of heating or ventilation so they're pretty easy to use now below all of that stuff in the center control stack in the dashboard you also have a wide array of buttons and controls in the center console here in the dbx specifically you have ten buttons arranged in two rows of five now over on the left closest to the driver you have two buttons marked mode and they will cycle through your drive modes and this car offers several you have eco comfort sport sport plus individual that you can configure and you even have an all-terrain mode since this is an suv after all now below the mode buttons over on the driver side you have a button with a picture of a dbx on it and two arrows up or down this is your air suspension button you can raise or lower the dbx so if you want to go fast you can keep it lowered but if you're going off-road you want more ground clearance just push that button and it'll pop right up to give you more clearance so you have more capability when you're off-roading now as for the row of buttons over on the right these are pretty standard straightforward nothing unusual here you have a power button on the top that turns on and off the infotainment screen and you have the lane keep assist button the auto start stop button your parking sensors and then at the bottom probably the most important button over here that's your 360 degree camera button you press that and a 360 camera comes on which is a very useful helpful feature you want to see in an suv some luxury sport suv manufacturers skip it but it's nice to see it's included here since it's helpful for maneuvering this in parking lots next up one other noteworthy item in the center console here you can see you have the volume control it's this little dial and it's over on the passenger side because the driver has a volume control on the steering wheel so this one is more for the passenger to use but it's nice to have a little dial you can just scroll up or down which again is an improvement over the porsche taikan and one other notable item in the front seat of the dbx is on the steering column or rather coming off the steering column and that would be the turn signal windshield wiper stock which may look pretty standard to you but if you've been in a modern mercedes recently you'll notice that comes from mercedes-benz like i mentioned those buttons on the tailgate the engine the infotainment system a few items in this car are borrowed from mercedes-benz i imagine it's cheaper for aston martin to just take it for mercedes than to develop these features themselves and next up we move on to the back seat of the dbx and the first thing i want to mention back here is interior space because you have kind of a sloping roof line in the dbx although it's not as dramatic as what you get in a bmw x6 it still slopes so you may be wondering if a person can fit back here well i'm six foot three six foot four and i fit just fine i'm sitting back here and i have a couple of inches between my head and the ceiling and i have several inches between my knees and the seat and the front seat is about where i would be sitting if i was in it so i'm actually surprised at how roomy the dbx is if you're considering this as a family suv it will work now next up another really notable item back here is the sunroof which is massive the sunroof covers basically the entire roof of this car you have it in the front seats too but it's a lot more noticeable in the back because it's just this giant glass panel over the entire roof obviously with the sunroof shade in place it's alcantara it just looks like a roof but with the sunshade removed it is huge and it is very noticeable back here although you can't open the sunroof it's just one fixed piece of glass in place and next up more items worth noting in the back seat i want to talk about the climate controls the rear seat has its own climate control zone and you can control it on this little screen at the back of the front center console you can see you can adjust the temperature no big deal you can also adjust the fan speed to control exactly how much air is blowing on you pretty standard now below that you have the seat controls and you have heated and ventilated rear seats back here which is pretty impressive not too many cars have that even high-end luxury ones and as you can see to turn them on you just tap the little controls just like the controls you have up front just tap them instead of pressing a button and next up below all of those controls in the middle back here you have two usb ports which is nice you can plug in a device and charge it which of course will be useful again if you plan on using this as a family car and next up a few impressive luxury features back here that are very much worth mentioning one is the little storage pockets behind the front seats basically every car has this but in the dbx they're taken to a new level of luxury you can see they are leather they are stitched and they even have this little leather handle that you pull coming off of them in order to open them up because aston martin makes even the rear seat storage pockets luxurious and next up another unusually luxurious item back here are the little images that tell you where to install the child seat you can see these are printed on the seat and they're embroidered in red to match the stitching and the seat belts on this seat in most cars they're just little cloth labels that stick out from the seat but not in this thing even those little images are classy as for the child seat anchors themselves they don't stick out looking all ugly instead they're under this leather piece if you don't want to install a child seat just keep the leather piece on and you will never know that they're there very luxurious and next up we move under the hood in the dbx and you can see the engine but before we get there i want to talk about opening up the hood which is rather unusual you don't have a little latch in the driver's foot well like in basically every other car instead the hood latch is in the passenger foot well now like i've said a few times this is a pre-production car not sure how that's going to translate into production but there are some production aston martin models that do have the hood release in the passenger side footwell is sort of a reminder that they were first built for the right-hand drive uk market and that's something aston martin didn't bother to move over when they were creating a left-hand drive version of the vehicle but anyway now we're under the hood and you can see the engine like i mentioned this is a mercedes amg engine the same 4-liter turbo amg v8 that amg uses in a lot of its products and it is a fantastic engine and i'm really excited to drive this car knowing that it has this powertrain in it this engine makes about 540 horsepower and about 515 pound-feet of torque and everything is hooked up to a nine-speed automatic transmission and next up a couple of interesting quirks and features in this area one is at the very front and center of the engine cover you have a plaque that says hand built in whales and then it gives the name of the person who finished it off the wales thing is important because this car was built in aston martin's new factory in wales that was created just to make the dbx and the anticipated production increase that comes along with having an suv so this is the first aston martin that has a plaque stating hand built in whales the other interesting thing in this area is the design of the hood itself which wraps around the top of the car kind of goes all the way to meet the wheel arches this car has no front fenders which is kind of unusual but pretty common for aston martin's that tend to have this design still it's kind of strange to see if you aren't used to being around aston martins and so that's a tour of the aston martin dbx this is a beautiful suv both inside and out but it's also a pricey suv especially compared to its already expensive rivals whether it's worth the money will depend on how it drives and i'm excited to return in a few months when the production model is here and the dbx goes on sale to get behind the wheel see how it drives and give it a dug score but for now that's everything quirky and featurey about the dbx [Music]

Channel: Doug DeMuro

Views: 1,737,074

Keywords: aston dbx, aston martin dbx, dbx, aston dbx review, dbx review, aston martin dbx review, aston-martin dbx, aston-martin dbx review, aston suv, new aston suv, aston martin suv, aston-martin suv, doug demuro, demuro, doug de muro

Id: L3wtMg2a2xk

Length: 27min 46sec (1666 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 12 2019