Aston Martin DBX review

• What is it?
• Surely a hybrid is more important?
• What else goes on underneath?
• Is it a convincing car?
• Our choice from the range
• What's the verdict?
• What is it like to drive?
• Does it put all that power to good effect?
• But can the chassis keep up?
• How about the regular DBX?
• Can it do off-road?
• What is it like on the inside?
• What should I be paying?

Overview

What is it?

The DBX is Aston’s first SUV in its 100-plus years of history – an attempt to wedge open the tall-car-centric doors of global markets like China, the Middle East and the USA – places deeply attached to the idea of Big Vehicle Status. It’s also a stab at making a genuinely useable, practical, everyday Aston – unlike the four-door Rapide. It’s built at a brand new production facility at St Athan in Wales, and despite only being launched in 2020, already accounts for 50 per cent of Aston’s global sales. There’s a lot riding on the DBX’s success…

There’s now two engine options for the five-seat, four-wheel drive DBX – although both are a Mercedes-sourced 4.0-litre biturbo V8. In the entry-level car it has 542bhp and 516lb ft, while the newer DBX 707 uses different turbos with additional cooling to develop a mighty 697bhp (707PS) and 664lb ft. The world’s most powerful luxury SUV is the claim.

Surely a hybrid is more important?

Yes, but also more costly to develop, and there’s the question of whether the world’s wealthy actually want a hybrid SUV, or if they’d prefer to carry on burning hydrocarbons until the exhaust starts gargling in the rising sea levels. Now, Aston has done a 430bhp mild-hybrid V6, but it’s for China only. Expect more news on DBX variants in 2024.

What else goes on underneath?

There’s a Merc-made nine-speed auto ‘box (further uprated for the 707), triple-chamber air-ride, a suite of electronically-controlled differentials, electric ride control and a host of other up-to-date tech that means this unique-looking Aston can cope with everything life throws at it – be that mud or racetrack kerbs. Or possibly a little of both.

Layered over the hardware is a striking bit of design work by AM’s design overlord Marek Reichman, featuring elements you don’t usually see in the toolkit of blocky SUV design tropes, and the DBX the better for it. There’s a long bonnet that butts up against a generously-raked ‘screen, a low roofline and a pinched ducktail at the rear that apes the Vantage. There’s muscle and tone in the side profile, a long wheelbase and plenty of detail – though it has to be said it looks better in the metal than it does in pictures.

The 707 gains a bigger grille at the front, larger diffuser at the rear and a load of other detail. If that’s the one you’re most interested in, click on these words for a separate review.

Is it a convincing car?

I’m assuming you mean is it a safe place for your money, when you could be putting it into a Bentley Bentayga, Lamborghini Urus or top end Porsche Cayenne. Aston as a company is not as stable as they are, and the DBX as a product doesn’t quite have their depth of engineering and quality. But it’s close. If you want to read a group test on all four of them, click here.

The biggest issue is the lack of a touchscreen dash interface (clickwheel operation only), and the final polish that characterises its rivals, but in terms of driving well and looking good, the DBX is right up there.

Our choice from the range

Aston Martin

V8 DBX707 5dr Touchtronic

Ј190,000

It’s a tough one, this. In a sector crying out for some difference, the DBX provides it. It looks interesting, goes really very well and hits all the targets. It does feel like an Aston Martin product, and is a really very practical SUV (running costs aside). It can manage off-road, feels suitably sporty even on a track – if you must – and generally has the chops to make light work of the grind.

The 707 is the really interesting one. Yes, it’s faster and more aggressive if pushed, but when you back off it’s every bit as comfortable and undemanding as the regular car. And not a lot less efficient. If you can afford the 25 grand uplift to £189,000, it’s the one to have.

But it’s a polarising thing – yet another bawdy V8 petrol SUV in a world increasingly turned on by efficiency. But saying that, it’s a very decent translation of Aston Martin into the cash-generating sector that is the SUV market. It’s a little late to the party, but if this is Aston’s Porsche Cayenne moment that allows the company to settle and produce ever more decent GT/sports cars, then that’s a good thing. It’s noisy and fun, practical and interesting, imposing and challenging. Nobody ever bought an Aston from a spec sheet – they buy them because of the brand, the heart, the passion. It might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a decent brew.

Driving

What is it like to drive?

Usefully, the DBX has six drive modes (GT, Sport, Sport+, Individual, Terrain and Terrain+), so the air suspension system has a decent chance of dealing with whatever you throw at it. On A-roads and motorways it’s a companionable – if not entirely fuss-free – cruiser, never quite aping a magic carpet thanks to a slight undercurrent of big-wheeled thump to the ride and slight noise. This is the car’s dynamic weakness – it lets more tremor, vibration and fidget through than rivals such as the Bentayga. And yes, the wheels are massive 22s, which don’t actually look too big. 23s are available.

Does it put all that power to good effect?

It reveals overtaking opportunities unavailable to more mortal vehicles, and the noise is nicely judged – a muted grumble in the more socially-acceptable ranges, a bassy bellow with a hard-edged buzz when you reach for the faster arcs of the rev-counter and the exhaust valves. The way the Merc-sourced 4.0-litre makes torque and power has been modified to better suit the DBX’s characteristics, and it’s pretty much spot-on. Similarly, when surfing around, the nine-speed auto seems to manage perfectly well. You don’t really notice it, and that’s a compliment.

The 707 is more urgent obviously, but only if you go looking for it. Throttle response and turbo build up are still relatively genteel, even the gearchanges from the E63 AMG-sourced gearbox aren’t too harsh. It’s just got way more mid-range shove and top end punch. It’s a very, very fast machine: 0-60mph in 3.3secs, 193mph top end. Still, it’s not like the standard car (4.5secs and 181mph) is slow.

But can the chassis keep up?

This is the best bit – even the 707 feels like it could handle more power. Driven on track the 707 feels wild, the chassis eager to send as much power as possible to the rear axle (90 per cent in the sportier modes). It’s a hoot, but a controllable, capable one. The regular DBX doesn’t have this ability or bandwidth, so if you want to really punt a DBX along, have the quick one. It’s got genuinely lovely steering, sounds delicious, has great chassis balance and is downright playful given half a chance. Plus when you back off you discover there’s no comfort or refinement drawback – it rides every bit as well, and feels more composed, together and expensively damped.

How about the regular DBX?

Given the opportunity to push (and drop the ride height a little for schporty reactions), it reveals a generally very safe balance with leanings towards rear-wheel drive responses, a tidy, not-very-SUV set of dynamic traits. Basically it’s pitched somewhere between a full fat fast SUV and an actual AM GT car. Some of that is the fact that it’s quite low – at 1,680mm, it’s some 60mm lower than, say, a Bentley Bentayga – but there’s a keenness that’s surprising.

It’s also marginally less satisfying on the track. Now, circuits are not where SUVs of any stripe feel comfortable or even rational, but the DBX really can lay claim to being a properly sporting thing. It’s not slick with speed, mind. It doesn’t feel like it slices through the air like a supercar, more a battering ram of performance with less barn-door aesthetic than the usual fast SUV.

The ‘box isn’t the happiest going full-bore either, despite the paddleshifters behind the wheel. It’s responsive enough on upchanges, but really doesn’t want to hammer a gear unless it’s down in the comfortable end of the rev-range.

In its most extreme mode, there’s a defined sharpening of the responses, and the active centre transfer case can vary drive from 47/53 front-to rear to 100 per cent rear-wheel drive, with the electronic diff in the back then pushing torque from side to side between the rear wheels on demand. There’s also brake-actuated torque vectoring, and a 48-volt electronic anti-roll control (eARC) system replacing traditional anti-roll bars. Now this could make the DBX feel a bit stilted and digital, but it doesn’t. There’s a little lean, a little oversteer, and a feeling that whoever set the car up arranged it so that it felt like a real GT car – albeit one that’s levitating a foot away from where it should be.

Can it do off-road?

More capably than you might imagine given that wheel and tyre combo. Dropped into Terrain+ mode, which raises the suspension 45mm from standard ride height, tweaks the various differentials and throttle maps and generally sets the cars up for lumpy country, it really can potter across some properly muddy geography. It’ll wade to half a metre – there are breather pipes on the diffs – manage hillocks and rock scrambles and generally mountain goat itself about. No, most owners won’t do it, but like most expensive and pointless things, it’s nice to have the element in reserve. After all, not many supercar owners test their 200mph capability, but that’s not to say that they don’t like the bragging rights.

Interior

What is it like on the inside?

As you might expect, there’s a herd’s-worth of cow in most DBXs, and it’s all very buttery and fragrant, with an initial palette of 35 colour and material choices along with two brightware finishes to slather everywhere. If that’s not enough, then you can always go full bespoke and order through AM’s ‘Q’ Department to get that peppermint green-over-tan that you’ve always wanted (though you’d probably end up with the taste police chasing you with a pool ball in a sock).

Still, the front seats are particularly pretty, and the rest of the interior is well-suited to four people, with an occasional seat for five. General leg and headroom is very good – something to do with that generous wheelbase and bespoke aluminium chassis – and although the doors are physically short, they open wide, which means the DBX is surprisingly accommodating and useful in tight parking spots, despite its overall width.

There’s a 623-litre boot (big enough for most uses), and proper full-split configurations for the rear seats, as well as another 62-litre cubby under the boot floor, meaning that you can do a passable impersonation of a luxurious removals van if you have to. Plus Aston has done away with a daft oversight. Presumably to save money, early DBXs were only available with a removable towbar – i.e. you had to lie on your back under the car to fit it. Not very luxury SUV. You can now have a fully electric one.

Back to more regular business. Up front you get a 12.3-inch screen for the instrument cluster, allied to a 10.25-inch multimedia screen in the centre console with techy bits derived from – you guessed it – Mercedes. It’s all very nice, but the centre rectangular screen sits behind a more organic shape, and looks a little misplaced. On early cars the response times were also woeful – there is no touchscreen – making the whole thing feel more than a little clunky.

One thing that’s actually very useful is the storage area under the central tunnel – a bit of a boon when you want to chuck a small bag somewhere. But generally it’s a car with decent vision, plenty of toys (even the ‘base’ stereo is an 800-watt, 14-speaker system), and a luxo-barge feel.

But yeah, the lack of touchscreen now feels particularly backward and while the cabin ergonomics are decent, there’s not the same range of adjustment and equipment available as in rivals. Still, great driving position, fine sculpted seats, warm, welcoming cabin ambience and a relaxed driver focus all add up to an individual SUV that’s unlike any other, and still a genuine Aston.

Buying

What should I be paying?

The DBX is pitched very much as a daily, and that point is no better made than the eleven – count ’em, eleven – optional lifestyle accessory packs. From ‘Snow Packs’ with tyre chains, ski-racks and a boot warmer, to the ‘Touring Pack’ (pretty fitted luggage, a safe under the front passenger seat and a first aid kit), to the ‘Pet Pack’ (dog bed, dirty paw shower unit, sill protector and dog guard – as well as other stuff) – it’s pretty much got you covered.

There are bike racks, an optional tow-bar (see the Interior section for more on that), a gun safe, picnic kits (the ‘Event Pack’), a ‘Sanctuary’ pack that has a battery conditioner and car cover – pretty much anything that you need to up your bottom line price. Even carbon tailpipe finishers (though they do also come part of the ‘Expression’ pack that includes illuminated treadplates and special valve caps…).

Put it this way: if you think you’re likely to walk out with a DBX for the £158k starting price, you may want to think again. Also, the V8 might be powerful and useful, but you’re looking at sub-20mpg all the time, max tax across the board and hefty insurance. If you have to ask how much the running costs are, you definitely can’t afford them.

And that’s before we get to the £189,000 DBX 707, where most of the cost uplift comes from mechanical enhancements rather than equipment. Still, it’s the one to go for and Aston reckons it’s likely to account for half of DBX production for a while. That’s right, everyone wants a 700bhp SUV.

Keyword: Aston Martin DBX review