Aston Martin DBX 707 2

  

 The new DBX 707’s place in the world might seem obvious: a faster, brawnier version of the find-handling Aston Martin DBX intended to put some clear water between it and rivals in this ultra-competitive segment.

But it has another role, one that causes Aston Martin CEO Tobias Moers to acquire a predatory grin: proving itself the fastest production SUV in the world.

But while that's the target, the revisions haven’t been allowed to compromise the DBX’s gentlemanly appeal. When Moers talks about the changes, he spends far longer talking about the new chassis settings than the revisions that have delivered the headline power figure (for the record: new ball-bearing turbos and a heavily revised induction system; the bottom end is unaltered.) While the front suspension has been stiffened to improve steering response, the rear dampers have been softened to improve traction.

Having demonstrated that it's also capable of some lurid drift angles, Moers leaves me to experience the car for myself.

Yes, the DBX 707 is both savagely loud and ludicrously fast when unleashed, launching hard and with the short gearing of the new nine-speed wet-clutch automatic gearbox making it hard to keep up with the engine’s ravenous demand for new ratios when under manual control. It’s the first time I’ve found myself wanting a brighter and more insistent change-up display in an SUV.

The revised front geometry has removed any hint of slack from the DBX 707’s steering responses, but not at the expense of an increase in force necessary to turn the wheel. The weighting is still light, although feedback is present. Responses are both keen and accurate, and the even taking liberties with the kerbs at Silverstone's Stowe circuit didn’t create any significant kickback. The steering feels very AMG-like, which, given Moers’s pre-Gaydon life, is hardly surprising.

Although the DBX 707’s anti-roll system cancels most lean, it can’t disguise either the slightly odd sensation of sitting so high in something so potent or the fundamental challenge of persuading 2245kg of mass to change direction quickly.

In Stowe’s slower corners, it wasn’t hard to provoke understeer, although this wasn’t excessive and happened under loadings that would rarely be encountered on road. But nor was it hard to engender oversteer, with the stability control’s permissive Sport mode allowing impressive slides before intervening, with the ability for the more heroic (or foolhardly) to turn the system fully off.