Aston Martin unveiled its DBX model car in Los Angeles and at a simultaneous event in Beijing on Tuesday. Thus, the British sports car company for the first time in its 106 year history produced the sports utility vehicle (SUV).
According to the automaker’s press release, the SUV is powered by a turbocharged 4.0-liter V8 engine built by Mercedes' AMG division in Germany.
It has a top speed of 291 km/h and can achieve 0 to 96 km/h in 4.3 seconds.
Prices for the DBX will start at about $190,000, or about $40,000 more than the automaker's least expensive model, the Vantage.
In designing the DBX, Aston Martin relied partly on the input of a female advisory board made up of female Aston Martin owners.
Besides being Aston Martin's first SUV, the DBX is also the first vehicle from the luxury auto maker to offer five adult-sized seats.
Besides being tested on racetracks like Germany's Nürburgring, a normal testing environment for Aston Martins, DBX prototypes were also driven on off-road rally courses and other rugged terrain, the company said.
The company is building a new factory in Wales to assemble the SUV. It will be available for sale in the second quarter of 2020. Due to the Aston Martin's slow production processes, it is expected that the number of new machines in the initial batch will be limited.
