Aston Martin DBX - crunch time

Sports car based crossover or Merc GLE-derived SUV? Aston's Andy Palmer on the brand's new direction

Aston Martin's SUV could be a sight more sporty than we realised. Having initially said the DBX would be built on a separate platform to the forthcoming sports car replacements, boss Andy Palmer is now saying the company is seriously considering building it on a modified version of the aluminium architecture used by the next DB9 (or whatever it'll be called).

"The most obvious configuration is to do a derivative of the next DB platform," he told PistonHeads earlier this week. "There's a fair few changes to move from a low-down car to a high-up car but that's definitely one of the options."

Could 585hp GLE AMG yet underpin fast Aston SUV?

Ever since it showed off the divisive DBX concept at Geneva earlier this year, Aston Martin has always made very clear that this is a crossover rather than an SUV. That's not going to convince many PHers to buy one over a 'low-down car' when it arrives around 2019 but it might end up being a more convincing vehicle that initially thought, especially with lots of lightweight aluminium underpinning it.

Palmer said that any plan to build it on a Mercedes SUV platform - previously mooted as a GL-based Lagonda - is virtually dead. There was some sense to the idea, given Mercedes parent Daimler is also supplying the turbocharged V8 engines and electric gubbins like infotainment systems for next-gen Aston sports cars. "They clearly sit in a very different space to the one we want to go to. They're very much an SUV and we don't want an SUV," Palmer said of cars like the Mercedes GLE. However he did say that there was the possibility of using some parts from the Mercedes bin.

What is looking more likely is that it will be built in the United States rather than Gaydon. Palmer said that Alabama (where Mercedes makes SUVs) is the "obvious choice" for a second plant, so perhaps we shouldn't write off a reskinned Mercedes altogether yet.

Anyway, given this project's primary role is to ensure the company has enough cash to make hairy and mostly uncomplicated sports cars then we should applaud it. On that score, Palmer had a nice line in a speech he gave to a conference in London focusing on future technology earlier this week. "The only autonomous thing I can imagine for an Aston is a button that says 'drift'," he said. It got a big laugh.