Aston Martin DBX Review: The ULTIMATE SUV? | 4K

[Music] 107 years that's how long aston martin have been building cars and over a century later they've finally done the unthinkable or is that the obvious they've finally made an suv and this is it the aston martin dbx it's designed to deliver on all fronts luxury performance looks but it faces some stiff competition from established players like the lamborghini euros and bentley bentayga aston martin are very very late to the party and if you're this late you're gonna have to bring something special and they've definitely brought something very special power comes from a twin turbo charged mercedes amg derived v8 the same one you get in the vantage and in the db11 and it is an absolute stonker of a motor this thing in those cars it makes 500 horsepower in this 550. how's it doing that well they've used updated turbo chargers uprated charge coolers and an improved compression ratio and it is really really strong it sounds absolutely phenomenal as well it's a mercedes engine but it's an aston martin exhaust mercedes times aston martin equals eargasms every single time so it's decent in a straight line but it's worth noting that some of the suvs the dbx goes up against are significantly quicker this does not a 62 in 4.5 seconds but the similarly priced lamborghini urus manages that sprint in around 3.6 but what it lacks in straight-line performance it makes up for with playful cornering it's got some interesting driving dynamics this car it kind of behaves not like an suv but more like a rear wheel drive sports car it's got an active center diff which sends most of the power most of the time to the rear wheels and depending on what driving mode you're in and how much slip you get from the front axle it will then shuffle the torque towards the front to help pull you out of trouble but the majority of time it does feel rear biased and that means when you get into a corner get on the power early and the back end does want to rotate fair play to aston martin there aren't that many suvs with as playful a back end as that and you can understand why most car manufacturers probably don't want their customers swapping ends on a greasy roundabout in milton keynes aston martin have thrown a lot of technology at the dbx in a bid to help it through the corners most notably eoc the electric anti-roll control system basically aston's name for the 48-volt anti-roll stabilization gizmos you get to reduce body roll this can apply 1400 newton meters of anti-roll force per axle which is up there with the most powerful for every g of cornering it can maintain less than half a degree of body roll you've got to give credit where credit is due this car stays unbelievably flat through the corners but that was never going to be this car's problem this car's problem i call performance suvs is its weight it weighs 2 145 kilograms and while by performance suv standards that's not absurd it's actually lighter than a bentley bentayga it's lighter than a bentley continental gt but you can still feel that way particularly when you're coming into these low speed corners a little bit of oversteer there but predominantly the feeling you get from the car is under stick if you go in too hot the car doesn't seem to want to turn in with the same eagerness as you might expect from one of aston martin's lower lighter cars power goes through an eight-speed automatic gearbox rather than a dual clutch unit that's now par for the course with performance suvs as it allows for better towing performance and smoother road driving even if it ultimately isn't as snappy as a dual clutch unit but guess what the gearbox in this actually feels quite responsive it gives you a slight interruption in the power when you up shift to give you that slight shove in the back to let you know that you're involved with the driving experience and while it doesn't quite want to shift down particularly from third to second gear you can drive around that problem there's so much torque in this 700 newton meters that second gear pretty much unnecessary even though the dbx has the wealth of tech rear wheel steering is noticeably absent some of this car's dynamic rivals like the porsche cayenne turbo and audi rs q8 use this system to good effect helping it to turn in more directly at lower speeds and here the dbx can struggle the brakes are an interesting one they've chosen not to equip this car with carbon ceramic brakes and i think that hurts the dbx slightly after a couple of big stops out here filming today the brakes did start to get quite hot mastermind had been pretty brave in letting us fire this thing around the track but it's just not a car you take on a track day but it's still a lot of fun i'm actually enjoying myself what you need to learn to do is to drive around this car's weight issue scale it back ever so slightly drive it at eight or nine tenths just be patient particularly on the entry of a corner that's where this car starts to make most sense don't hustle it like a sports car treat it like an suv understand its limitations this is a car you can actually enjoy driving fast is obviously very important to aston martin's customers but do you want to know what's even more important that's right looking good when you buy a 150 000 super suv you want the world to know about it and to respect the fact that you've bought something very nice and the good news is that the dbx is at least distinctive i'll let you make your own mind up about whether it's attractive but what i will say is that it looks a lot better in person than it does in pictures it's got all the familiar aston martin hallmarks for example the grill enormous the biggest they've ever fitted to any aston martin vehicle the badge equally enormous but i guess it's at least in proportion with the rest of the car along the side they've done their best to disguise just how massive this thing is by incorporating some sculpted elements along the door plus you get a typical aston martin door handle the wheels by the way are 22s i think they're a little bit small 23s would have filled those arches slightly better around the back they've tried their best to make this look a bit like a vantage on a small low slung sports car all of those elements end up looking really really nice but on a big bulbous suv does it look like an aston martin or a caricature of an aston martin once you get past the challenging shape there are plenty of interesting details these drls are an integral aerodynamic part helping to reduce drag by sending air to the front fender via the wheel arch these bonnet vents are exhausted towards the windscreen while this rear wing forces air down the screen helping it to self clear of water without the need for a wiper clever [Music] the technology is pretty decent too it uses a mercedes-derived infotainment system which consists of two separate displays one up here for all your driving information and a second screen for all your navigation and media playback it's not the most comprehensive setup in the world but the features that are there bluetooth dab etc are easy to control via this essential rotary knob in the center console now practicality very important in an suv and i've got to say i'm actually quite impressed by the dbx first and foremost you get this huge cubby down here for storing all your bits and bobs individually adjustable arm rests and a couple of cup holders plus decent sized door bins and a big glove box plus if you've got extra stuff to store then you can do so down here below this floating console all in all they've done a really decent job up here they've also done a decent job of helping the dbx suv do suv things there's plenty of leg and headroom in the back for passengers and the boot offers a sizeable 632 litres of space on paper bigger than a eures and far bigger than a bentayga aston has also done a great job of pretending its customers will take the dbx off-road the adaptive air suspension can raise the car's ride height by 45 millimeters or lower it by 50 millimeters to help it tackle a variety of terrain it also has useful additions like hill descent control and is surprisingly capable if you accidentally find yourself near some mud aston we commend you but let's face it just as the dbx is unlikely to ever be driven on a racetrack it's even less likely to be driven too far from tarmac right so we know it's sporty we know it's got decent utility but what's the dbx like out on normal roads where 99.9 no no 100 of people are gonna drive this car let's face it no one's actually gonna take one of these on a track are they well it's surprisingly good surprisingly different a minute ago i was tearing around a racetrack raising all hell with that exhaust note but now i'm on the road and it's a completely different animal you can tell that aston martin have worked incredibly hard to make this thing as quiet and as refined as possible because there's no wind noise there's no road noise and that motor even though you can hear it burbling away is not too intrusive the air suspension is a dream too working effectively to smooth out nasty bumps its ability to go from firm one minute to supple the next allows the dbx to feel at home in a variety of circumstances [Music] the driving position is worth talking about as well it's not quite as commanding a seating position as you might find in something like a range rover it's much more coupe inspired in that sense you sit quite low down in the car but despite that i don't feel overly intimidated because i know exactly how big the car is and i feel confident in placing this thing exactly where i want it to go the brakes which i felt were a little susceptible to fading are great out here because they're easy to modulate and let's face it not everyone will be braking super hard on the school run where you'll use this car is on normal roads where smooth progressive brakes are important and these work well provided you're not too hard on them when you're out on the track because of the amount of power and torque this car has and because of the fact that its brakes are relatively susceptible to fading i think that sometimes you can find yourself getting into trouble and pushing beyond this car's abilities and your own whereas out here on the road when you've got things like speed limits and speed cameras and the danger of animals and pedestrians being on the road you find yourself driving much more within your limits and also within the cars limits and that's when this thing is far more enjoyable the dbx's performance envelope lends itself better to road than track in fact i'd go as far as to say that it's a better more dynamic car to drive on the road than the bentayga i haven't yet driven the urus on the public road so the jury's out on that one but you'd have to be pretty dead inside not to enjoy a spirited blast in a dbx away from the limit it just flows so nicely the steering isn't hyperactive in the slightest it's nice and progressive the brakes aren't being asked to perform minor miracles understeer isn't an issue because you're not driving flat out anymore and there is so much power prodigious amounts of torque that you can enjoy this car in all its glory was the dbx worth the weight yes it was is it perfect no it's not carbon brakes would have made it a far better performance car as potentially would rear-wheel steering but in the end this is still enormously enjoyable to drive more so than many of its peers yes aston martin were massively late to the party but now they're here and sometimes just sometimes a is not a party until the cool kids [Music] arrive [Music] foreign

Channel: AutoTrader

Views: 420,844

Rating: 4.9149952 out of 5

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Id: Dtu9hWpsYqk

Length: 13min 6sec (786 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 09 2020