Aston Martin DBX707 review: The joys of flex

I think high performance sport utility vehicles (SUVs) like the Aston Martin DBX are a stupid idea, but that’s just me. You might feel a two-seat sports car that can do triple the speed limit is completely pointless.

But going by sales numbers and SUVs’ overwhelming success, it looks like I’m the daffy one here. Just as well no one has let me run a car company.

Yet, if you had an Aston Martin, would you really want a somewhat hulking SUV, or one of the sculptural sports cars that lets you pretend to be James Bond?

I’ll say this much for the DBX, though – it transfers Aston’s signature styling elements to the bulk of an SUV body well, perhaps better than rivals do with their own sporty off-roaders. You could certainly prise the badge off its nose and you would still know what you were looking at (a stint in jail, unless it were your own Aston you were defacing).

If you’re going to buy a dumb kind of car, you may as well get properly silly, so if you ask me it’s the 707 version of the DBX or nothing.

Being an Aston Martin, the standard DBX doesn’t exactly lack muscle, but the 707 is the one 007 would drive, if he ever settled down to raise spy kids.

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As far as I know, it doesn’t shoot rockets, but the DBX707 does have plenty of firepower. With 707 horses under the bonnet, it is the most powerful SUV you can buy in Singapore.

It has the aggressive looks to make sure that everyone knows it, too, with a much larger grille than the standard DBX and hefty air scoops in the front bumper, some of them for cooling the carbon ceramic brakes.

Add to that black body trim, quad tailpipes and rear diffusers that look like they actually do something, rather than being there for show.

If that doesn’t excite you, driving it will. The twin-turbo V8 is sourced from Mercedes-AMG but massaged by Aston for more power, and because it’s just that kind of car, it has shorter gearing so it can accelerate extra hard.

Sure enough, blasting along in the Aston feels like being in a Bond picture. It doesn’t accelerate so much as feel like it’s being propelled by a huge explosion, and the soundtrack is so rousing, it makes the small hairs stand.

Aston’s engineers gave the DBX707 a track-focused driving mode that apparently lets the dedicated driver drift until the rear tyres go bang, which is the sort of thing that wins kudos from the motoring press. But on real roads, I’m not sure I’d count handling as one of the DBX707’s strengths.

The active suspension and super sticky tyres do a lot to get this hefty SUV around bends at speeds to make every buttock on board clench hard, but the DBX doesn’t exemplify deftness or precision. It feels like it works hard to defy physics rather than work with it, and it never really shakes the feeling of being a big car.

Maybe that’s par for the course with a violently fast SUV like this. What’s less up for debate is that the Aston’s cabin is a let-down.

For a car that costs seven figures, there are too many bits that feel cheap, such as the signal and wiper stalk, or dated, such as the entertainment system, which is fiddly to use because it doesn’t have a touchscreen.

Both are from Mercedes, and while it’s one thing to lean on another car company for components, it’s quite another to borrow the obsolete stuff.

On the plus side, the DBX707 is the best built Aston Martin I’ve ever driven. You have to look hard to find a crooked panel on the body, whereas before you had to search for a straight one.

But you can certainly see how practical the DBX is. It’s properly spacious in the back and the boot carries 632 litres of stuff, enough to make this car a family Aston.

Above all, however, the practicality is merely a bonus. In fact, so is the ballistic performance. What you’re really getting with a DBX707 is the knowledge that you are the baddest boy with the baddest toy, because no one would have a madder or more powerful SUV than you.

I still think ultra-fast SUVs are dumb, but I can respect one that’s this crazy.

Aston Martin DBX707

Engine 3,982 cc, V8, twin-turbocharged

Power 707 hp at 6,000 rpm

Torque 900 Nm at 4,500 rpm

Gearbox 9-speed automatic

0-100 km/h 3.3 seconds

Top speed 310 km/h

Fuel efficiency 14.2 L/100 km

Agent Wearnes Automotive

Price S$999,000 without COE

Available Now