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Aston Martin DBX spied with Mercedes-inspired interior exposed

Aston is out doing performance testing on its new SUV, the DBX. One of our spy photographers caught it running around the Nurburgring a short while ago, and now we have sound to go along with it. There are also a few shots of the interior that show off some of Mercedes' contributions to the crossover. If we had to guess, we'd say Mercedes-AMG is also providing the loud beast hiding underneath the hood, too. In listening to the DBX pounding around the Ring, it sounds a whole lot like the 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8 found in all the extra-hot AMG vehicles, from the AMG GT to the GLC 63. It's a guttural, nasty sound we've grown accustomed to out of these vehicles, and now that Aston is already using this engine for the DB11 and V8 Vantage, it's no stretch to think they'd use it again. The interior features a lot of Mercedes switchgear upon close inspection. It's impossible to confirm, but the font, menus and layout of the infotainment system look a whole lot like MBUX. Then the array of climate controls, rotary knob and buttons around it look just like the stuff out of a modern Mercedes. If you zoom way in on the key sitting in the dash, we can even see a little of what might be a three-pointed star on it. At any rate, the key is identical to what new Mercedes keys look like today. Moving on to the steering wheel, we see the exact same setup as what's on the spokes of pretty much every Mercedes equipped with MBUX. Everything down to the symbols and black touch-sensitive buttons show up here. It's important to remember this vehicle is still a prototype, so things could change. As for the exterior, we don't get to see anything new there beyond what Aston officially released awhile back. It's still wearing all the same camouflage, touting sponsors/suppliers to go along with the same zany green, yellow and red look. Aston has previously said the DBX will be officially revealed before the end of this year, and we'll expect it to go on sale in 2020.

Aston Martin Lagonda Vision Concept re-envisioned as zero-emissions luxury brand

After introducing the hand-built, limited-edition, one-million-dollar Lagonda Taraf saloon in 2015, Aston Martin is again reaching to its Lagonda heritage dating back to 1904. But while there's a new saloon concept to be presented, Lagonda has completely changed around it. The Taraf had a six-liter, 540-horsepower V12 under its hood: the new car has no engine and no hood. Instead, Aston Martin is turning Lagonda into what it calls the first zero emission luxury brand. The herald of the newly born Lagonda is the Vision Concept, and it showcases the design language Aston Martin is preparing for a 2023 launch. While Astons still embrace the internal combustion engine, the letter "O" in Lagonda's logo is re-purposed to stand for zero emissions. As per Aston's statement: "With no need to package a vast internal combustion engine, gearbox and transmission, Lagonda's designers could optimize the interior down to the smallest detail and then build up the exterior of the car around it. The Lagonda Vision Concept doesn't have a bonnet because one is not required." The production Lagonda is to be fully autonomous "on all routine circumstances and all recognizable roads." This means the steering wheel can freely move from the left side of the car to the right, or retract completely. Choosing to not do the driving isn't alien to Lagonda customers, as Aston Martin's Andy Palmer explains. "For owners of true luxury cars, autonomy has existed for over a century, in a carbon-based form called a chauffeur." He adds, "We imagine most Lagonda customers will choose to be driven, but whether by a person or a computer will be up to them. And if they want to drive themselves, the car will ensure that is a delightful and memorable experience too. Lagonda will provide that choice." The tall, airy cabin has been designed with the help of Savile Row tailors, and the armchair-like seats can be arranged to face each other. The seats aren't mounted on runners, but cantilevered arms. As for range, Lagondas will have been engineered for a real-world 400-mile range with solid-state batteries. There's "intelligent all-wheel-drive," with any wheel able to be given 100 percent of the available torque.

2018 Aston Martin DB11 Volante First Drive Review | The speed of style

If you're not a car designer, chances are you've tried to draw a sportscar, and realized just how hard it is to get those proportions just right. One false line, and the sleek coupe of your imagination looks like a kumquat. So you can imagine that transforming the striking V8-powered Aston Martin DB11 coupe into an equally stunning Volante ragtop was harder than it looked, a task which required Aston designers and engineers to nip and tuck everything past the windshield. "There were lots of healthy, heated debates," lead designer Julian Nunn says of how the DB11 Volante – fancy speak for convertible – was packaged. As it sits before us on a brisk winter morning in Southern France, the British drop-top has a sleek, fleet look thanks to the elegant rake of its nose, the sharp arc of its roofline, and the taut contours of its derriere. Aston's designers nailed the proportions – it's a stunner. How they got there was a game of millimeters, starting with a minuscule lift of the haunches to accommodate the eight-layer folding soft top. To soften the look of those lifted surfaces, the wheel arches are faceted slightly inboard, lending them more depth and dimension. The convertible loses the air vent at the rear, since there's no roof to create lift; as such, the so-called AeroBlade feature which ducts air through the C-pillar is also gone. But the rear spoiler remains, automatically deploying for downforce with a speed-dependent algorithm based on driving mode. The stack height (that is, the vertical space occupied by the folding roof) measures 10 inches, the lowest in its class, which helps the DB11 achieve its graceful looks with the added benefit of keeping the center of gravity low. The top takes 14 seconds to lower, and will drop at speeds up to 31 mph. A Volante with its top down puts Aston's typically gorgeous cabin on full display: the door's brogued leather details surrounded by an improbably shaped veneer surround; the complex curvature of the veneer around the capacitive touch-sensitive infotainment interface; the improbably generous swaths of leather and Alcantara upholstering the dashboard and A-pillar surfaces. There's even, for the first time, veneer on the backs of the front seats. The tiny rear seats come with ISOFIX car seat attachments, a first in a Volante. I could go on about the DB11's unusual and intriguing aesthetic choices, but I've also got a persistent gripe with the electronic instrument cluster.