Aston Martin DBX Review 2024

It’s always controversial when a sports car maker turns its hand to building SUVs, and so it was when Aston Martin launched the DBX. The company knew it had to be good to win over buyers and silence the doubters, so it threw everything at it. The DBX is a clean-sheet design, made in a purpose-built factory in Wales – and Aston Martin got it right first-time.

Let’s start with the styling, which blends the aesthetic of Aston Martin’s sports cars with the big, five-door body of an SUV. We reckon it’s rather handsome, although from some angles it takes a bit of getting used to. It’s certainly less controversial than rivals such as the Lamborghini Urus, BMW XM and Bentley Bentayga.

There are many different colours, wheels and trim packages available off-the-shelf to customise the car to your taste. Speak to Q, Aston Martin’s bespoke customisation department, and the options are basically limitless.

It’s a similar story inside the Aston Martin DBX. The interior looks great, it’s sumptuously luxurious, quiet and relaxing. The glass sunroof lets in lots of light, there’s a good view out, and the leather seats are hugely comfortable. This is a fantastic car to travel in. Again, there are dozens of personalisation options.

You’ll find space for five adults, but headroom is a bit limited if you’re really tall. Kids will have loads of room in the back, though, and the boot is big enough for most people’s needs. Fold the back seats down if you need to carry more stuff, or hook up a trailer. The Aston Martin DBX can tow 2.7 tonnes.

There are two models to choose from: the ‘standard’ Aston Martin DBX and the Aston Martin DBX707. Both cars have the same features, including sat-nav, three-zone climate control, electrically adjustable front seats, an electric steering column, heated seats front and rear, an opening sunroof and lots more besides.

There are many driver-assistance features, too, including adaptive cruise control, a 360-degree camera system, blind-spot monitoring, lane-keeping assist and rear cross-traffic alert.

The Aston Martin DBX is let down somewhat by its infotainment system, a hand-me-down from Mercedes-Benz. The 10.25-inch screen is a bit small, it uses a rotary controller and it’s not compatible with Android Auto. However, it does have sat-nav, DAB radio, Bluetooth and Apple CarPlay connectivity.

Both the Aston Martin DBX and Aston Martin DBX707 use the same powertrain, sourced from Mercedes-AMG. It’s a 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 engine with an automatic gearbox and four-wheel drive.

The difference is in their power outputs: 550PS in the DBX and a mighty 707PS in the Aston Martin DBX707. The Aston Martin DBX is extremely fast, the 707 ballistically so.

They are fabulous cars to drive as well. It’s hard to believe that such a big, heavy machine can be so quick on a winding country road. It genuinely feels like a sports saloon. The 707 feels more precise, but the standard Aston Martin DBX is still enormous fun.

When you’re just going about your business, the Aston Martin DBX is smooth, quiet and comfortable. It does feel its size in town, but it’s a great motorway cruiser.

The official figures show average fuel economy of around 19mpg. You should get more than that on the motorway – and significantly less when driving enthusiastically. It’s in the top band for vehicle excise duty (VED, or road tax) and benefit-in-kind (BiK) tax rates are steep. But that’s to be expected with this kind of car.

At the time of writing, the standard Aston Martin DBX costs £176,000, while the Aston Martin DBX707 is £194,000.

That’s right in the middle of the large luxury SUV spectrum, between the Bentley Bentayga and Lamborghini Urus. We reckon it’s pretty reasonable value at that. The cost rises quickly if you pick a lot of options, though.

The Aston Martin brand and the DBX’s styling alone may be enough to swing your decision in its favour. Compared to its luxury SUV rivals, it’s arguably the most stylish and the best to drive, plus it has the luxury (if not quite the tech) you expect, along with the practicality you need.  

The Aston Martin DBX is very big and very heavy, yet it feels much smaller than it is from behind the steering wheel. If you’re getting into the Aston Martin DBX from something like a Mercedes-AMG E 63, it feels remarkably similar to drive.

It’s also very fast, comes loaded with safety kit and is even a very capable tow car.

Show it some corners and the Aston Martin DBX seems incredibly agile and light on its feet. Ultra-sophisticated air suspension, adaptive dampers and active anti-roll control keep the car’s body almost completely upright in corners, even if you really chuck it in.

There are many settings you can adjust and driving modes to select. Using the Individual mode helps set the car up exactly as you want it.

The electronics don’t isolate you from what’s going on, though. The steering weight is spot-on, and you sense what the road surface is like and what the car is doing through the wheel and seat. The Bentley Bentayga and Lamborghini Urus aren’t this interactive or engaging to drive.

In the Aston Martin DBX707, all those sensations are turned up to 11. It’s sharper and more poised – more playful, too. It might just be the best-handling luxury SUV there is.

The sheer size of the Aston Martin DBX means it’s not the easiest car to drive around town. However, the phalanx of parking sensors and on-board cameras are a big help.

The ride is really smooth at any speed, and the interior is relaxing and peaceful – at least until you floor the throttle. It feels immovably stable at motorway speeds. All-in-all, the Aston Martin DBX is a consummate long-distance cruiser.

In the somewhat unlikely event you venture off-road in a Aston Martin DBX, you’ll find it can scramble up muddy slopes, ford streams and clamber over rocks with surprising ease.

The engine in the Aston Martin DBX is fantastic. It’s a 4.0-litre twin-turbocharged V8, also used in a vast number of Mercedes-AMG performance cars and the Aston Martin Vantage. A nine-speed automatic gearbox and four-wheel drive are fitted.

The engine is incredibly responsive and produces a range of sounds, from a speedboat-like woofle when idling to a hard-edged roar when you floor the right pedal.

The engine is, of course, hugely powerful. In the regular Aston Martin DBX, it produces 550PS and 700Nm of torque, enough to get from 0-62mph in 4.5 seconds and reach a top speed of 181mph.

The top-spec Aston Martin DBX707 has, as the name suggests, a massive 707PS and a mighty 900Nm of torque. With that, this 2.2-tonne car can slingshot from 0-62mph in just 3.3 seconds, before reaching a top speed of 191mph.

In either form, the Aston Martin DBX is perfectly docile when not driving with a heavy foot. It never feels like it’s straining at the leash. But the way it can dispatch an overtake or a motorway slip road is scarcely believable.  

The Aston Martin hasn’t been assessed by the safety experts at Euro NCAP, so it doesn’t have one of their star ratings. But we can be confident that the large and heavy DBX is a safe car.

It’s certainly loaded with safety features. These include automatic emergency braking, lane-departure warning, lane-keeping assist, blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert, traffic sign recognition and a whole lot more besides. 

You might be surprised to learn that the Aston Martin DBX is a very capable tow car, with a capacity of 2700kg. We’ve seen several being used to pull race car trailers, and even a horse box. The DBX would look fabulous with a large Airstream caravan, too. A Bentley Bentayga can tow even more, though, at 3500kg.

There’s ample space for five adults in the Aston Martin DBX. However there are a couple of things to bear in mind. Firstly, the car’s roof is quite low, which limits headroom in both the front and back, so it may not be ideal if you’re much over six feet tall. And while three adults do fit in the back, it can feel cramped after an hour or so.

That said, the Aston Martin DBX has more than enough space to serve the needs of most families. Kids have room to stretch out and even little ones will be able to see out of the back windows – not always the case with this kind of car. There are two sets of Isofix mounts, and installing a child seat takes just a couple of moments.

The boot isn’t the biggest you’ll find in this type of car, with a capacity of 491 litres or 638 litres filled up to the roof.

That’s significantly less than you get in a Range Rover, for instance. Still, there’s enough space to accommodate the average family’s holiday luggage with some judicious packing. The boot’s square shape and vast opening make it easy to chuck stuff inside, too.

On those occasions when you need to cram in more stuff, the back seats fold down in three sections.

Aston Martin offers all sorts of accessories for the DBX’s boot, including fitted luggage, fold-out seats, a picnic hamper, a lockable storage cabinet and even a dog bed. 

The design of the DBX’s interior, in particular the dashboard, is very similar to Aston Martin’s sports cars. It’s really rather handsome, and swathed in tactile materials. The dashboard is trimmed in leather, there are bits of real metal dotted about the place, plus there is a vast range of finishes available for the centre console.

The dashboard layout is pretty easy to get your head around, but the switches on the centre console are a bit fiddly.

All the seats are sumptuously upholstered in soft leather, and it feels no less luxurious in the back than the front. The opening panoramic glass sunroof floods the interior with light. It’s a decadent way to travel.

It’s very well-made, too, more so than other Aston Martins, if not as precise and polished as a Bentley. But then nothing is, really.  

The infotainment in the Aston Martin DBX is bought in from Mercedes-Benz. The system is centred around a 10.25-inch dashboard display, and you navigate it using a rotary controller or touchpad on the centre console.

Features in the system include sat-nav, DAB radio and Bluetooth. You can connect your phone via Apple CarPlay, but it isn’t compatible with Android Auto.

That’s because the system is a couple of generations old, so it’s not as feature- and information-dense as Mercedes’ latest infotainment. It’s easy enough to use, but doesn’t look or feel as up-to-date as the newest widescreen, high-definition touchscreen tech.

The driver has their own 12.3-inch digital display that shows the driving and vehicle data you get with traditional dials, plus other useful info. Oh, and the 800-watt, 14-speaker stereo sounds awesome.

The Aston Martin DBX has a list price of £176,500, while the more powerful Aston Martin DBX707 costs £194,500. Those prices are somewhere between its main competitors, the Bentley Bentayga and Lamborghini Urus, and significantly less than the Rolls-Royce Cullinan or Ferrari Purosangue. We reckon the DBX is decent value, then.

Of course, the list price is just the starting point. You’ll no doubt want to add some options to personalise your car, but be aware that costs can quickly mount up.  

If you’re thinking about buying an Aston Martin DBX – or any other large, high performance SUV – you’re probably well aware that running costs will be pretty steep. But let’s go over the numbers.

A ‘standard’ Aston Martin DBX can return average fuel economy of 19.8mpg. The DBX 707 can manage 19.9mpg. Drive enthusiastically and the MPG could plummet into single figures, but more than 20mpg is reportedly achievable on the motorway.

Both cars produce CO2 emissions of 323g/km, which puts them in the top bracket for vehicle excise duty (VED, or road tax). You’ll pay £2,605 for the first year, then £570 from the car’s second to sixth birthdays (£180 for VED plus the £390 luxury vehicle surcharge). Company car benefit-in-kind (BiK) tax rates are very high.

Servicing won’t be cheap, either. The warranty lasts for three years with no mileage limit, and Aston Martin also sells extended warranties covering cars up to 20 years old.

There are two models of Aston Martin DBX to choose from: the ‘standard’ Aston Martin DBX and the supercar-fast Aston Martin DBX707.

Both cars have the same array of standard equipment. There’s far too much to list it all here, so we’ll just go over the highlights.

The infotainment system has a 10.25-inch display and features sat-nav, DAB radio, Bluetooth, Apple CarPlay connectivity and an excellent stereo. The driver also gets a 12.3-inch digital display that can show all sorts of information, and access certain infotainment features.

Comfort features include leather upholstery, three-zone climate control, 12-way electrically-adjustable front seats, an electrically-adjustable steering column, driving position memory, heated seats front and back, an opening panoramic glass sunroof and a powered tailgate.

There are loads of driver safety aids, too, including adaptive cruise control, an automatic parking system, blind-spot monitoring, lane-departure warning, lane-keeping assist, front and rear parking sensors, a 360-degree camera system and rear cross-traffic alert.   

You can easily spot the Aston Martin DBX707 by its bigger wheels, enlarged front grille, quad exhaust pipes, massive rear spoiler and the diffuser below the back bumper. There are lots of carbon fibre styling details, too.

All of this is just the jumping-off point, of course. You can also delve into a vast catalogue of optional equipment, different leathers and interior trims.