It was a late summer morning in Sonoma Valley, and the air was still crisp from the evening’s fog. I was in something approaching a state of bliss, a consequence of a delectable night’s sleep at Hotel Healdsburg, when, stepping into its secluded courtyard, I stopped still at the sight of an unforgettable face.
In a flash, I was transported to the French Riviera, where I’d last marveled at that great, voracious mouth and those menacingly seductive eyes in the visage of an Aston Martin DB12, a 202-mile-per-hour super-tourer designed to devour endless stretches of autobahns and autostradas in great, effortless gulps. And yet here again were those same unmistakable features, only this time in the prow of what is surely the sexiest SUV ever built, the Aston Martin DBX707.
The DBX707 has four doors, generous room for five passengers, and an enormous trunk, yet from nose to tail, every inch of its sleek silhouette channels the mystique of Aston Martin’s rakishly low-slung coupes. How, exactly, did the design team at Aston Martin HQ achieve such a thing? By starting from an entirely new bespoke platform that allowed complete control of every proportion and stylistic detail of the DBX707’s aluminum and composite body, clad, in this case, in a shimmering coat of Synapse Orange.
The interior, meanwhile, is a seamless fusion of ultra-luxury SUV comfort and supercar seriousness. Buckling myself into the 16-way Sport driver’s seat, I find myself ooh-ing at the sunny pastel of the cabin’s Californian Poppy leather and aah-ing at the tactility of the analog buttons and switches that — for those who prefer physical things to touch screens — quickly and intuitively activate the DBX707’s key mechanical operations, from gear selection and drive mode to suspension.
With the press of a delightfully burly ENGINE START button, the 4-liter Aston Martin– developed AMG V8 jumps to life with a rasp and a rumble, the digital instrument cluster snapping on, vivid and ultra-crisp.
There’s 697 horsepower under the hood, and a mind-bending 664 pound-feet of torque, enough to catapult the DBX707 from zero to 60 in 3.1 seconds on its way to a 193-mph maximum velocity, but feathering the supercar of SUVs through the town center is an absolute breeze. Is it simply that the gas pedal is so wonderfully finessable, or is it the influence of a more mystical property whereby awestruck drivers of more anodyne vehicles tend to give an Aston Martin a wider berth?
I’d ponder the question more deeply were I not so engrossed in the sumptuous ride as I jet north on the freeway in GT mode. The same bespoke platform that gave Aston Martin complete freedom in the realm of body design also allowed unconstrained control when it came to the DBX707’s suspension and steering systems. Which is to say that the moment you peel off onto a twisty two-lane and flick the DBX707 from GT into Sport+, that super-supple feel turns scalpel-sharp, the burly, leather-wrapped wheel transmitting every ripple and nuance of the road. And blazing toward the Sonoma Coast in the supercar of SUVs, I can’t shake the memory of racing along the Côte d’Azur in a DB12 super coupe, or the certainty that in an Aston Martin, each and every mile is the most delicious I’ve ever tasted.
