SUPERLATIVE SUV

Aston Martin's upgraded DBX S takes the fight to Ferrari's Purosangue

- ILLYA VERPRAET

Big SUV didn't reveal its playful side on test drive; ride can get rather lively.

No matter how much we eulogise about lightness, "less is more" and a moderate amount of power being enough, it seems that for many buyers more is still more.

When Aston Martin introduced the 707 version of the DBX super-SUV, it expected to offer it alongside the standard one, but buyers overwhelmingly proved willing to pay extra for the hardcore 697bhp version over the 550bhp option.

So much so that when Gaydon gave the DBX a midlife update last year, it dropped the base model altogether — no point in making something that people aren’t buying.

It's only logical, then, that the firm would further capitalise on that strategy of ever ramping up performance. Enter the new DBX S, which takes the 707 (which is now the standard DBX) and adds even more power and aggression.

The 707’s 697bhp (707PS) was already the most power that the cross-plane 4.0-litre Mercedes-AMG V8 made anywhere (not including the flat-plane-crank Black Series version), but Aston Martin’s engineers were able to extract even more by way of some bigger twin-scroll turbochargers, taken from the Valhalla supercar.

The result is 717bhp, with a bigger rush higher up in the rev range. The 0-100kph time remains unchanged, at 3.3sec, but I’m told that's a conservative figure for the standard car. Spec all the lightweight options and your S should go a bit quicker.

Yes, you read that right: this 2,245kg SUV is available with a range of lightweight options that can get that figure down to a gossamer 2,198kg. Chief among those are the new 23in magnesium wheels, saving about 5kg of unsprung mass a corner, and a carbon fibre roof, which saves another 18kg over the standard panoramic sunroof.