2024 Aston Martin DBX707 | PH review

Luxury performance SUVs receive a lot of criticism, with any PH review likely to garner a roasting in the comments. Still, there are some things these mega-expensive posh-roads are really good at. Aston’s invitation to drive the lightly modified DBX707 involved picking it up from the company’s Gaydon headquarters and delivering it to central Edinburgh later that day – a 350-mile journey that provided a chance to reacquaint itself with its key talents.

Long-legged cruising ability, which comes from a combination of effortless performance and a supple chassis, remains the greatest. The turnaround that led to the punchier 707 variant – which will be the only DBX going forward – hasn’t changed that. Low-speed ride quality over urban bumps is a little more advanced than the original version, which isn’t surprising given the test car’s 22-inch wheels, but even in turned form, the DBX remains a car that can cut a long distance. better than almost anything else. Only the thirst of the 4.0-liter AMG V8 for 98 RON and the corresponding need to escape briefly from the intimate embrace of the sports seats prevented a non-stop run north.

This is a feature that Aston’s lower and more traditional Grand Tourers have long had, of course. But there’s definitely something about sitting higher and above the fray that slows things down further, especially when you’re dealing with traffic that’s more stopping than going on the M6 ​​north of Birmingham. If there’s a better way to sit in traffic, I’m trying to think of it.

But the DBX707’s other superpower is less well-regarded, only coming to the fore after I turned off the motorway and crossed the Scottish Borders. I would normally take the A701 from Moffat to Edinburgh via Broughton, one of the best roads in the world. But for DBX707 I mixed it up with a long detour that started on the A708 from Moffat towards Lake St. Mary’s. This is another spectacular piece of tarmac, but also very lumpy, with the first dozen or so kilometers a brutal test of suspension compliance over wild ridges and dips. I know from previous experience that anything low and sporty is likely to catch and ground if you’re going at anything other than a very judicious pace.

But the DBX707 is almost impervious to topography. Its combination of generous wheel travel, compliant air springs and undeniably adaptive dampers tackled the roller coaster without breaking a sweat. This is a car that doesn’t try to fight the road, rather it rolls with its punches – but not the corners. The 48-volt anti-roll system is another kind of black magic that minimizes body roll even as the suspension fights things up and down. The forces must be huge, in Aston numbers the DBX707 weighs the same as two MX-5s. But that makes it all seem a lot easier than it undoubtedly is.

In the softest GT mode, you can feel a little extra movement at speed. It’s not lightness in terms of a lack of discipline, but rather a feeling that the DBX707’s body moves for longer than is strictly necessary for control, if not comfort. But by switching the adaptive dampers to their sport mode, it relaxes better without overshooting, even when digesting a full meal. Few buyers of the DBX707 are likely to throw their car over a sand dune or down a Baja trail, but the anti-gravity feel is reminiscent of that delivered by the Ford F-150 Raptor RI that ran in the US last year.

I’ve never driven a DBX707 before the A708 facelift, but I’m sure it would look pretty much the same. That’s because mechanical changes are less likely than Rishi Sunak’s chance of popping champagne corks on election night. For the record, the steering calibration is now lighter in GT mode, the exhaust note has been reworked to deliver a more muscular sound when delivering high torque at low revs, and various active systems have been tweaked, mostly to make hits come earlier and more gently. .

But the basic experience is essentially unchanged. The V8 sounds wild and angry when stretched, moody and bassy at lower revs. Torque is huge in every way and more than enough to offset the occasional hesitation on kickdown as the transmission tries to figure out which of its nine gears to select. There’s also a very slight surge from rest, probably due to the car using the AMG wet clutch system rather than the torque converter of the non-707 DBX axle. But the basics remain in place, the DBX707 steers precisely, grips firmly and is very stable at speed. The massive carbon-ceramic brakes that come standard bite hard and are easy to modulate. Yes, the DBX’s behavior is obviously largely defined by its size and weight, especially when thrown into tighter corners. But even with all-wheel drive traction, the balance of handling can still be very much turned with the throttle. He is a playful elephant.

So with more than half of the review covering what hasn’t changed, I should probably turn to what Aston spent its development money on – the DBX707’s new interior. When boss Lawrence Stroll spoke to reporters earlier this year, he admitted that the outgoing DBX’s cabin – and in particular its clunky and outdated user interface system – were the main cause of complaints from buyers and (more importantly) potential buyers. That’s why a lot of effort has gone into moving it into Aston Martin’s new UX system, which we’ve already seen in the DB12 and Vantage.

And it’s definitely not just a stuck touchscreen. The DBX has been completely stripped down with a brand new dashboard – a big investment for a four-year-old car. The basics are very similar to the sports car layout, essentially the same center console with a switchboard flanking a stiff new gear selector that replaces the outgoing car’s old P/R/N/D buttons, plus a rotary drive. mode selector with integrated stop/start button. In front of them is a wireless charging pad with a 10.2-inch touchscreen in the center of the dashboard.

Okay, so it’s not really “applause” territory when it comes to high-end automotive technology, especially considering the number of manufacturers now offering wall-to-wall high-definition screens. The DBX707 has physical controls for heating, fan speed and volume, a touch-sensitive area for seat heating and ventilation, and then shortcut buttons that allow you to set damper stiffness and exhaust mode separately from the dynamic modes. Less good is the glossy black finish on the plastics, which seems to be all the rage at the moment but will soon be covered in fingerprints if you don’t drive with gloves.

The touchscreen has a large back wall and is placed at an oblique angle, which means it suffers from reflections when bright sunlight hits it from some directions. The UX runs Aston’s own Unix-based operating system, which provides the basics in an artisanal way. There are some shortcut icons on one side, but navigating between other features means going to the home screen and back; bit of a faff when switching between CarPlay and something else. My 15-year-old daughter, a connoisseur of such things, thought it looked and worked much better than the clunky PCM system in our 2009 Cayman, but it wasn’t as slick as the one in the family’s 2020 Skoda Superb, if that helps. place it in the UX-version. But compared to the old Merc-based system of the first DBX, with its awkward turn-and-click control wheel, it feels like it’s from another century. Or in short, the revised DBX707 improved in one key area – and remained almost exactly the same in all other respects. Which is really all that needs to be done.

Engine: 3,982 cc V8, twin-turbocharged
transmission: nine-speed automatic, wet clutch
Power supply: 707 hp at 6000 rpm
Torque: 663 lb ft @ 4500 rpm
0-60 mph: 3.1 seconds
Top speed: 193 mph (limited)
Curb weight: 2,245 kg
MPG: 19.9
CO2: 323 g/km
Price: £205,000