LOS ANGELES — I was cruising along the Pacific Coast Highway, on my way back to Culver City from Malibu, when an odd thought crossed my mind. I had just spent a good chunk of the evening carving up the tight, twisty, and technical tarmac ribbons in and around Topanga Canyon, which are considerably more treacherous than the flowing sweepers of Angeles Crest Highway that you usually see celebrated in automotive media. I was tearing up these roads in a 2025 Aston Martin DBX 707—which I thought would be the last thing I’d want in that kind of environment.
It’s an ultra-luxury SUV with nearly quadruple the power of the last car I had here. I expected it to be a beautifully made bruiser cruiser, and what I got was so much more interesting than that. The DBX 707 is playful, fun, responsive, and the front end is set up to communicate clearly what the massive 285-section Pirelli P Zero tires are doing. It leaps into a corner eagerly, displays surprising balance throughout, and then rockets through the exit and into the next one with tenacious mechanical grip from its all wheel drive system. It’s fun.
There’s very little electronic intervention in managing the nearly 700 horsepower on tap, even on these roads that seem as though they’d make this big Aston Martin feel completely out of sorts. This type of narrow, winding B-road almost seems more suited to something like a Subaru WRX, with its scrappy character conveying the sense of a cat scampering across a hardwood floor. This DBX instead feels like a big cat with big cat muscle, but a cat all the same.
And that’s where the thought hit me: this DBX almost feels like a Bizarro World offspring of a WRX and a Bugatti Veyron. Bear with me on this: on one hand, it’s all-wheel drive, it has decent ground clearance, it’s a surprisingly practical hatchback, there’s a pretense of all weather and all-terrain capability, and its drivetrain set up makes the DBX 707 chuckable in a reassuring way that few other cars can do.
On the other side of the equation, it is crafted from the most gorgeous materials with stunning attention to detail, all tied together with striking design befitting of its eye-watering price tag. It’s then imbued with more power and performance capability than you could ever possibly need, to such a degree that I didn’t even think I’d want it, but it’s set up in such a way that it creeps under your skin and makes things fun—and encourages you to play with it.
And then when you don’t want to play, the DBX 707 just as effective. The dual-pane glass hides you from the roar of California’s concrete freeways, and the air suspension hides you from expansion joints. The seats are terrific, the 23-speaker Bowers and Wilkins sound system is wonderful, visibility is good, storage and space is very healthy … I can’t think of much to complain about here.
This 2025 model makes things even better by virtue of a completely redesigned dashboard and steering wheel. It goes a long way towards making the DBX look and feel more contemporary, and in my opinion, significantly more attractive than the outgoing model. It moves away from the Mercedes-based infotainment they used to use, instead utilizing an all-new system designed in-house. It’s augmented by an attractive array of physical controls, including symetrically knurled scroll wheels and jeweled buttons, because Aston Martin. It’s a similar arrangement to what’s in the new DB12.
I’m happy to report the tech all works pretty well, it’s easy enough to figure out, and I didn’t encounter any bugs in my time with it. The display stood up against the California sun without any issue, although if I had to nitpick, a little more processing power to speed some things up would be welcome. Wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay are standard if you prefer to do your own thing, and they have neatly integrated a wireless charging tray into the centre stack, too.
It’s a significant step up from what was here before, with a lot of quality of life improvements, all laid out in a manner that’s much easier to use and prettier, because that matters in a car like this. On the topic of pretty, I have to bring up this DBX 707 tester’s colourway of Supernova Red paint over All Spicy Red leather—it’s stunning. I was apprehensive about the red-on-red at first, and there’s no instance where it doesn’t look a little much. But in practice, on this vehicle with its sense of theatrics and beautiful design, it really works. It should be a little much. It’s nearly half a million dollars. You kind of want it to pop and feel special, like the boutique product that it is.
I came away from this very impressed, and I think that’s all the more impressive given that I was really not expecting to be impressed. I’m not super keen on ultra-luxury brands, I don’t particularly care about being able to sprint to the century mark in a little over three seconds, and I don’t like crossover SUVs. But I’ll tell you, I do like a good V8, I do like a good chassis, and I do appreciate fine craftsmanship. The 2025 Aston Martin DBX 707 is a WRX that’s built like a Bugatti, and that’s a pretty wild cocktail no matter how you shake it.
