Aston Martin DBX707 2023 Review

You’ll need at least $428,400 to park the 2023 Aston Martin DBX707 on your driveway. Actually, you’ll need quite a lot more, as by the time you add on-road costs and take the inevitable deep dive into the extensive options list you’ll be quickly heading towards $600,000.

Nevertheless, that’s not out of step with rivals such as the Bentley Bentayga S (from $450,200 plus ORCs), Lamborghini Urus S (from $409,744) or Rolls-Royce Cullinan (from $692,150).

If the latter sounds like somewhat of an odd comparison, the friendly Melbourne Rolls-Royce salesman (that shares a showroom with Aston Martin) informs me that a number of Cullinan owners have ordered DBX707s.

Not as a replacement, you understand, just as something to use daily for the school run and the like.

Even without digging into the options list, the 2023 Aston Martin DBX707 comes with plenty of toys standard.

Keyless entry and start, a panoramic glass roof, 16-way adjustable electric front seats, heated seats front and rear, triple-zone climate control, double-glazed windows, 64-colour ambient lighting, 22-inch wheels, LED exterior lighting, a sports exhaust and power tailgate are all included.

Options include an incredible array of paint colours, three wheel designs in a variety of colours, carbon-fibre exterior packages for the upper and lower body and a pair of ‘interior environments’.

Both add ventilated seats front and rear, semi-aniline leather, leather headlining and a heated steering wheel, the difference being either satin chrome or dark satin chrome for the interior jewellery.

Other extras are an Alcantara-trimmed steering wheel, carbon or bronze mesh interior trim, smoked tail-lights, rear privacy class, super-thick carpets and even gesture control for the power tailgate.

If you’re curious and/or bored, Aston Martin’s online configurator is one of the better ones around and a good way to while away an hour or so.

Aston Martin only offers a three-year/unlimited-kilometre warranty, though this can be extended for extra cost.

There’s no official safety rating for the 2023 Aston Martin DBX707 but its safety equipment cupboard is impressively well stocked, including front, side and curtain airbags and plenty of active safety technology.

Autonomous emergency braking (AEB) with pedestrian detection, forward collision warning, adaptive cruise control, lane departure warning, lane keep assist, exit warning, rear cross traffic alert, traffic sign recognition and blind spot warning are all standard in addition to driving aids like stability control and rollover control.

On the surface, all looks well within the 2023 Aston Martin DBX707.

A 12.3-inch TFT display provides digital instrumentation with infotainment handled by a 10.25-inch display with AM/FM/DAB radio, Apple CarPlay, a quartet of USB ports (two front and rear), sat-nav, Bluetooth and voice control.

This plays through an 800W, 14-speaker stereo. Other cars might have more statistically impressive systems, but the DBX707 does a pretty good impersonation of a concert hall when it needs to.

Where the whole thing falls down is when you need to interact with the aforementioned infotainment system. You think it’s a touch-screen, it looks like a touch-screen, but it’s not a touch-screen.

You are therefore forced to use the Mercedes-Benz-sourced touchpad/rotary controller combination that Benz abandoned either one or two generations ago, depending on the model.

It was terrible to use then and it’s terrible to use now, making the selection of your desired feature almost a lottery.

It may sound like a small thing but think how often you interact with the infotainment and then imagine if every one of those interactions was a source of frustration, how annoying that would be.

Under the bonnet of the 2023 Aston Martin DBX707 is the same AMG-sourced 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 you’ll find in the regular DBX, but it’s had quite the fettling.

New ball bearing turbochargers and a revised engine calibration lifts power by a huge 116kW and torque by massive 200Nm over the standard car, to figures of 520kW/900Nm.

To transmit these enormous reserves Aston has also nabbed Mercedes-AMG’s nine-speed MCT wet-clutch automatic gearbox, which uses a series of wet clutches in lieu of a traditional torque-converter to reduce parasitic losses and improve shift speed.

Combine the extra grunt and the faster gearchanges with the standard all-wheel drive – which can send up to 100 per cent of the torque to the rear axle and incorporates an electronically-controlled rear differential with a shorter ratio – and you have performance claims of 0-100km/h in 3.3sec, 0-160km/h in 7.4sec and a 310km/h top speed.

These numbers would prompt a second glance for a top-flight supercar, let alone a high-riding family SUV.

Like most cars, the 2023 Aston Martin DBX707 will likely drink more fuel than its official claim. Unlike most cars, however, its official combined fuel consumption claim is 13.5L/100km.

The tall gearing of the nine-speed gearbox means highway consumption will be a little less, but in stop-start traffic or with enthusiastic use of the throttle that number can also easily move towards (or beyond) 20L/100km.

Let’s get straight to the point: the 2023 Aston Martin DBX707 is the most enjoyable of the super-SUVs I’ve driven, which includes various Porsche Cayenne models (GTS and Turbos), Lamborghini Urus, Bentley Bentayga in V8 and W12 guise, Range Rover Sport SVR and Audi RS Q8 (though the latter is particularly good).

Note the word ‘enjoyable’. Is it the quickest through turns? Does it corner with the most control? Would it set the best lap of a racetrack? I’m not sure of the answers to these questions, but in terms of which puts the biggest – somewhat incredulous – smile on the driver’s face, the Aston is the pick.

The engine is absurd, its AMG origins noticeable if you’re familiar with other applications, only more raucous and ferocious.

Whereas AMGs tend to hit hard in the mid-range before fading slightly at the top end, the DBX707 simply becomes more rabid as it approaches redline. After all, no AMG version of this engine offers this sort of power.

Full-throttle acceleration pins you into your seat for extended periods, the sheer volume of power shrugging off the burden of the DBX707’s substantial 2245kg mass.

The noise is suitably feral, too, a sharp snarl that’s American in nature.

Shifts from the nine-speed ’box are brisk, especially when changing up, but like the AMGs it shares the transmission with, the Aston can be a bit stumbly at lower speeds.

It’s the chassis that sets the DBX707 apart, though.

So often these super-SUVs are remarkably capable but fairly blunt instruments, the technology required to control the massive power and weight robbing them of driver connection, making driving them quickly slightly unedifying.

Active anti-roll bars are a case in point – usually they eliminate body roll but take any sense of where the vehicle’s limit is with them. The DBX707 features this tech but it’s calibrated in such a way that you don’t really know it’s there.

You’ll commonly read that “Vehicle XYZ doesn’t feel its weight”, but that isn’t the case here. Aston’s ultra-fast SUV always feels heavy but because it telegraphs its movements relatively clearly it doesn’t feel intimidating.

With some familiarity, you can even manipulate the weight to your advantage.

The steering is quick and very well-weighted, front-end grip is remarkably strong, enormous carbon-ceramic brakes – 420mm discs with six-piston callipers up front, 390mm discs and single-piston units at the rear – have an unenviable job but cope admirably and the harder you drive the DBX707 the more its talents reveal themselves.

As ridiculous as it may sound, the DBX707 behaves like a giant Mercedes-AMG A 45 S. Up to a certain point it’s well behaved and very, very fast, but push beyond that and instead of getting scrappy it comes alive, able to be bullied into corners and rotated with the accelerator.

It seems scarcely believable that a car of this size and weight could get up on its tip toes and dance like this, but Aston Martin’s clever engineering team has pulled it off.

A word of warning, though: indulge yourself for too long and you will quite literally drive the tyres off the DBX707.

In less frenetic use Aston’s SUV is still at home, the double-glazed windows keeping it hushed and the adaptive air suspension ensuring the worst of the road’s imperfections are kept at bay.

There is still a firm edge to the ride quality but it feels entirely appropriate for an Aston Martin, a sporting-luxury product rather than a grand tourer in the Bentley mould.

The greatest benefit of the 2023 Aston Martin DBX707’s substantial size is the amount of room inside.

The boot is simply enormous at 638L, with another 81L under the floor, and the air suspension can even lower the rear to make it easier for the dog to jump aboard.

You might not want to put your dog in a half-million-dollar luxury SUV, but enough customers do that Aston Martin offers a Pet Pack for the DBX, consisting of a rear-seat partition, rear bumper protector, portable washer, lead, food carrier and bag.

The limousine-like back seat is equally spacious and Aston’s decision to cut away the rear sills to aid entry and exit is a masterstroke.

Triple-zone climate control means separate temperature controls, there’s a pair of USB-C ports and our test car also scored ventilated outboard rear seats in addition to the standard heating. ISOFIX points are also present on each side.

Up front the DBX707’s button-fest centre console is a bit dated but, infotainment control aside, is easy enough to use, especially now a drive mode controller has been added, preventing the need to scroll through multiple screens to adjust them.

It’s an expensive-feeling cabin, especially when optioned with swathes of leather and carbon, but you’ll be reminded of where the money goes each time you open the door and feel the cold metal of the handle.

Aston Martin has also taken the opportunity to implement a number of improvements to build quality, lessons learned from the past couple of years of regular DBX production: certain materials are better, there are new features (gesture control for the tailgate, for instance), fit and finish is a little more polished.

There’s only one thing that would make me hesitate in buying a 2023 Aston Martin DBX707 and that’s that damn infotainment. That might sound trivial, but you’ll curse every time you use it.

But it’s not enough to take the shine off what is an incredibly capable but, more importantly, immensely enjoyable super-SUV. It possesses what all-too-few cars have these days: character.

It’s the anti-social noise, the outrageous performance, the grin-inducing handling. It was clearly developed by people who know that cars like this should make you smile. Not that it’s a comedy act, for its size and packaging make it genuinely practical.

It’s surprisingly crowded at this stratospheric end of the marketplace and often it comes down to what you like the look of – perhaps you covet a Urus, like the look of a Range Rover, or want a Bentayga?

Regardless of your preference, you’ll be doing yourself a disservice if you don’t at least sample the DBX707.

2023 Aston Martin DBX707 at a glance:
Price: $428,400 (plus on-road costs)
Available: Now
Engine: 4.0-litre V8 twin-turbo petrol
Output: 520kW/900Nm
Transmission: Nine-speed wet-clutch automatic
Fuel: 13.5L/100km (ADR Combined)
CO2: 309g/km (ADR Combined)
Safety rating: Not tested