Aston Martin DBX S review

Certainly Lamborghini’s 2018 Urus took the whole idea into hyperspace. Its wild looks, £213,595 price tag and 3.3sec 0-60mph time belied its not particularly brilliant off-road ability, because it doesn’t matter. These things are just all-weather, mega-performance family transport. The worst they are ever going to meet is the gravel path to the shoot car park.

So, no apologies were required when, in 2020, Aston Martin launched its own version. The DBX was subtle (not good), sophisticated (again, of limited appeal in this market) and a lovely way of covering miles. You just never see them on the road.

For as Adrian Hallmark, Aston’s new boss said earlier this year: ‘we launch a new car and then we forget it.’

Well not exactly, since there was the 2022 707 version, which upped the power, the looks and the suspension. But as Hallmark and Frank-Steffan Walliser (Hallmark’s replacement as CEO at Bentley) both observe: you need to give your customers another reason to buy.

And the DBX S is just such a machine designed to liberate at least £210,000 from their owners’ offshore business accounts.

Welcome to the power of numbers, or in this case 20 brake horsepower, because that’s all the extra you are getting with this S version over the 707, despite its new big turbo compressor wheels courtesy of the Valhalla supercar project.

With no sheet metal changes (though in the startling Plasma Blue of our test car, the sides look more sculpted and the coachwork looks that bit more tight on its wheels) perhaps the biggest change is the fitting of Aston’s new infotainment screen system, which is probably more significant to most owners than the 0.3sec improvement in the 0-124mph acceleration time.

And if the market likes the Urus which it seems to, then the DBX S now provides a satisfyingly muted alternative; just as fast, more elegant and more British. And to be fair, there is an off-road setting in the DBX S’s drive mode, but I wonder just how much use it will see. This is mainly about sheer performance and key-fob power.

Walking up to the new Aston in the Cotswold car park, though, I felt the new grille, bulbous in piano-black plastic, seemed fussy, even if it was designed to echo that of the more recent Zagato models and saves three kilograms. There’s around 47kg of weight saving on this car with ‘lightweight options’, but Aston isn’t yet revealing just what those options will cost you.

Those 23in wheels are gorgeous bits of gyrational art and matte-black targets for hungry granite kerb stones, though the parking sensors and cameras should keep them safe, at least until you have a moment’s lack of concentration.

Start it up and the new exhaust gives a meaningful burble, though for those without neighbours there’s a yet-louder setting.

The centre console is festooned with similarly coloured switches and dials for engine and suspension settings, exhaust noise and so on. Easy once learned as they say, but while logical, you will still need to look down to find the less-visited functions. One welcome addition is the single button to deactivate the awful lane centring and speed-limit warnings.

The seats are tight around the kidneys but comfortable and supportive and there’s decent accommodation in the back for three across, with the boot capable of swallowing a couple of big cases or a dog or two.

And visibility is good, too, particularly diagonally out of the windscreen where the quarter lights allow you to see into tighter corners and the door mirrors are panoramic. Yet despite the impression of a big car poured into a figure-hugging Cheongsam, there’s little impression of where the corners are. In fact, the DBX S is rather a big car being 5039mm long and 2175mm wide with the mirrors out.

Trickling out onto Broadway there’s little indication of the 700 horses under the bonnet, just a supple ride quality on all-round three-chamber air suspension (much better than two-chamber in low-speed ride performance), and a comfortable reaction to broken road edges despite the 48-volt active anti-roll bars. It’s all a bit anticlimactic in fact. Then you get out on the open road, where the reluctance of the gearbox brain to kick down is a pain and you need to remember to use the steering wheel paddles when engaged in sporting motoring.

But once you’ve done those things, you press the loud pedal and…

Woof, you’re gone.

Selecting Sport or Sport Plus activates a series of rather more up-for-it settings along with lowering the car by about 50mm. Yet still the ride is plush, although in the most extreme setting, there’s a washboard feel to rear ride quality on the rougher surfaces.

Up to 100 per cent of torque can be sent to the rear wheels, up to 50 per cent to the fronts but on the road, frankly there’s more grip than you can handle and the car feels crushingly stable and capable.

This is the season for visitors known in the West Country as ‘newly weds and nearly deads’, and they don’t get up too early, so traffic is light and pressing on you get to appreciate the responsive and progressive steering which comes off the dead centre with a lovely lift, almost straight out of the ex-JLR attributes boss Mike Cross charm school. You might not be able to see the corners, but there’s an intrinsic sense of where the car is on the road, which can’t be said of all the rivals.

This must be Aston’s fastest ever point-to-point car, able to use more of its power and speed for more of the time than pretty much anything else. But you don’t belt around in a car like this. Instead, you waft deceptively quickly from corner to corner, easing the throttle down, taking responsibility for the size and power and then the DBX S does its job beautifully.

So if you’re after something that looks as though it should be patrolling the streets in a dystopian cartoon strip, then rivals will be happy to help. But if it’s good tempered, brisk mile eating you are after, with discreet but well-draped looks and decent accommodation, the DBX S more than provides.

And when it comes time to go fast, well, just make sure you do it on an empty stomach.