Aston Martin’s DB11 represents a sea change in design language

Being an anonymous middle-aged man, it’s not often that a squeal of teenage girls reacts to me with literal slack-jawed adulation. But, if you want to know what it feels like to be Justin Bieber, without the pain of having to actually be Justin Bieber, buy Aston Martin’s new DB11 while there aren’t many on the streets.

I’m self-aware enough to know it wasn’t me, even if, at the time, I was wearing the famous person’s disguise of choice – a pair of sunglasses and baseball cap. And while the grille – designer Marek Reichman’s favourite part of the car – nods to the legendary DB5 of James Bond fame, I’m pretty sure this bunch would more likely think Goldfinger was an exotic ailment before they’d be quoting Blofeld.

And yet, there they were as I parked up, looking my motor up and down and literally mouthing, in slow motion, “Oh. My. God.” As Reichman puts it, even he has not known reactions of the like inspired by the DB11. “It’s a frenzy,” he says. Or, as my pizza delivery guy noted: “Now that is beautiful”. And he wasn’t talking about his deep pan crust.

It is not easy to say why the DB11 achieves such instant adulation any more than any other Aston Martin – a company known for privileging proportion even over engineering necessity, resulting in uncommonly elegant machines. But it looks to be that way. Finding myself down a narrow road and head to head with an orange Lamborghini – stylistically the polar opposite of an Aston – even its driver nodded approval, letting me through first. Anyone who has seen the recent remake of The Magnificent Seven – in which one scene riffs on the western movie trope of the music stopping when the badass walks into the saloon – will experience its automotive equivalent.

It’s not just the 5.2-litre twin-turbo V12 that announces the DB11’s arrival. That would feel like cheating, even if Aston Martin says it has put a lot more into giving it a distinctive sonic identity, right down to the chime of warnings and the click of buttons. No, it’s the lines. The DB11’s profile falls and rises like a wave. This Aston Martin is nipped in at the waist, unlike most Aston Martin drivers. The bonnet rakes, the side vents, the wheels’ retro-futuristic spokes, the stylish scoop under the C pillar, all suggest forward motion. This looks to be a beefier Aston Martin – not a muscle car perhaps, but an extremely “cut” car maybe. Sadly, for anyone not inside a DB11, all this is lost on them.

The DB11 represents a sea change in design language for Aston Martin precisely because, more than ever before, here form does follow function.