2024 Aston Martin DBX707 | PH assessment

Higher performance SUVs get a lot of criticism, and every PH review is likely to get a rose in the comments. Yet there are a number of things that these mega-expensive chic roaders are really good at. Aston’s invitation to drive the slightly revised DBX707 involved picking it up from the company’s headquarters in Gaydon and delivering it to central Edinburgh later the same day – a 550-mile journey that offered the chance to once again to discover his most important talents.

The biggest remains the long-legged cruising ability that comes from the combination of effortless performance and a smooth chassis. The rise that led to the more powerful 707 variant – which will be the only DBX in the future – did not make it solid. The ride quality at low speeds over urban bumps has a little more oomph than in the original version, no surprise given the test car’s 22-inch wheels, but even in folded form the DBX remains a car that can shorten a long journey better than almost anything else. the other. Only the 4.0-liter AMG V8’s hunger for 98-RON, and the attendant need to escape the intimate embrace of the sports seats, prevented a non-stop drive north.

This is a quality that Aston’s lower and more traditional Grand Tourers have of course long possessed. But there’s certainly something about sitting higher and above the fray that further de-stresses things, especially when you’re dealing with more stop-than-go traffic on the M6 ​​north of Birmingham. If there’s a better way to be stuck in traffic, it’s hard for me to think about it.

But the DBX707’s other superpower is a less recognized superpower, which only emerged after I left the motorway and crossed the Scottish border. Normally I would take the A701 from Moffat to Edinburgh via Broughton, one of the most beautiful roads in the world. But for the DBX707 I mixed it with a long route starting with the A708 from Moffat towards St. Mary’s Loch. This is another spectacular stretch of tarmac, but also very bumpy, with the first few dozen kilometers a brutal test of the suspension’s compliance over wild peaks and valleys. I know from past experience that anything low and sporty is likely to stall and bog down if ridden at anything other than a very gentle pace.

But the DBX707 is virtually insensitive to topography. The combination of generous suspension travel, flexible air springs and no-nonsense adaptive dampers handled the roller coaster without any problems. This is a car that doesn’t try to fight a road, but rolls with its bumps – but not with its corners. The 48-volt anti-roll system is another kind of black magic, keeping body lean to a minimum even as the suspension battles with things bouncing around. The forces involved must be enormous, according to Aston’s figures the DBX707 weighs no less than two MX-5s. But that makes it all seem much easier than it undoubtedly is.

In the softest GT mode, a little bit of extra movement can be felt at speed. It’s not floatiness in terms of any lack of discipline, but rather the feeling that the DBX707’s body continues to move a stroke longer than is strictly necessary from a control, if not comfort, standpoint. But putting the adaptive dampers in their Sport mode locks it in better without making it harsh, even when digesting an all-roughage diet. Few DBX707 buyers are likely to throw their car over a sand dune or down a Baja trail, but the anti-gravity impression is reminiscent of the Ford F-150 Raptor RI that raced in the US last year.

I’ve never driven a pre-facelift DBX707 on the A708, but I’m sure it would have felt almost identical. That’s because mechanical changes are smaller than Rishi Sunak’s chances of popping champagne corks on election night. To be clear, the steering calibration is now lighter in GT mode, the exhaust note has been revised to produce more muscle sound when delivering high torque at low revs, and the various active systems have been adjusted, especially so that the intervention is earlier and more subtle arrives.

But the core experience is basically unchanged. The V8 sounds ferocious and angry when extended, moody and bass-heavy at lower inputs. Torque is huge across the board, with more than enough to compensate for the occasional kickdown hesitation as the gearbox tries to figure out which of the nine speeds to choose. There’s also a very mild jerk sensation when pulling away from rest, likely caused by the car using AMG’s wet clutch system instead of the torque converter of the non-axle 707 DBX. But the basics remain current: the DBX707 steers accurately, has a firm grip and feels extremely stable at speed. The huge carbon-ceramic brakes, which are standard, bite hard and are easy to modulate. Yes, the DBX’s behavior is clearly determined in large part by its size and weight, especially when thrown into tighter corners. But despite the all-wheel traction, the balance of handling can still be turned very much on its head with the accelerator. It is a playful elephant.

So since more than half of the review focuses on what’s unchanged, I should probably focus on what Aston spent its development money on: the DBX707’s new interior. Speaking to journalists earlier this year, boss Lawrence Stroll admitted that the outgoing DBX’s cabin – and especially its clunky, outdated UI system – was the main cause of complaints from buyers and (more importantly) potential buyers. That’s why a lot of effort has gone into moving to the new Aston Martin UX system that we’ve already seen in the DB12 and Vantage.

And this is certainly not just any stuck touchscreen. The DBX has undergone a complete teardown with a completely new dashboard – a major investment for a four-year-old car. The underpinnings are very similar to the layout of the sports cars, with essentially the same center console with switchgear either side of a stubby new gear lever that replaces the old P/R/N/D buttons on the outgoing car, plus a rotary drivetrain . mode selector with integrated stop/start button. In front of that is a wireless charging pad, with a 10.2-inch touch-sensitive screen in the center of the dashboard.

Okay, so not exactly ‘applause’ territory when it comes to cutting-edge automotive technology, especially considering the number of manufacturers now offering wall-to-wall high-definition screens. The DBX707 has physical roller controls for heating, fan speed and volume, a touch-sensitive area for seat heating and ventilation, and then hotkeys that allow adjustment of damper stiffness and exhaust mode separately from the dynamic modes. Less good is the gloss black finish of the plastics, which seems all the rage at the moment but will soon be covered in fingerprints unless you drive with gloves on.

The touchscreen has a large screen and is located at an oblique angle, which means that it suffers from reflection when bright sunlight falls on it from certain directions. The UX system runs on Aston’s own Unix-based operating system, which delivers the basics in a traditional way. There are some shortcut icons on the side, but navigating between other functions means going in and out of the home screen; a bit of a hassle 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 wasn’t as slick as the one in the 2020 Skoda Superb, if that helps to put it in the UX verse. But compared to the old Merc-based system of the first DBX, with its clunky twist-and-click control wheel, it feels like it’s from another century. Or, in short, the revised DBX707 has gotten better in one key area – and remained almost exactly the same in every other area. That’s really all it takes.

Engine: 3,982 cc V8, twin turbo
Gear box: nine-speed automatic, wet clutch
Current: 707 hp at 6,000 rpm
Couple: 663 Nm at 4,500 rpm
0-100 km/h: 3.1 sec
Top speed: 313 km/h (limited)
Weight: 2,245 kg
MPG: 19.9
CO2: 323 g/km
Price: £205,000