TOFF ROADERS

I AM ALONE IN THE DARK. The sky is overcast, and being somewhere on a single track road near the bottom of the Lake District's Hardknott Pass at 11pm, that dark is reliably inky, unbothered by even the barest lumen of ambient light pollution.

- TOM FORD

There is no phone signal, and the Ferrari Purosangue has a puncture. A tiny little pinch puncture slit on the sidewall of the 23-inch rear tyre that might as well be the Rift Valley for all the difference it would make. As with many modern cars there's no spare, and no bottle of gunk is going to ease away the tiny tear in the rubber, at least for the drive back to civilisation a scant 15 or 20 minutes up the road. The crew, glorious bastards that they are, have gone to scout for help and... have dinner. I await my fate to whatever monsters roam these valleys after dark, and glumly chew some wilted crisps while writing this.

It started so well. Two of the very best super utility vehicles on the market, both honed by their respective manufacturers to be the best they can be. Ferrari's Purosangue, born in fuss over its niche, a bespoke high riding four seater with a 6.5-litre V12 - a true supercar engine - and more in common with Ferrari's usual sports car fare than any SUV with a mucky industrial bloodline. Then there's the Aston Martin DBX S, the latest in the DBX line of big and brutal Astons. The basic 550bhp DBX is no more, the 707 model now the baseline, and the S adds faster steering, more committed suspension, a breath more power and quad stacked exhausts for... exactly the same money. So it's not so much an upgrade as a preference.