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I’ve pushed and reviewed lots of of vehicles over 1 / 4 of a century, and the 2026 Aston Martin DBX S is without doubt one of the vanishing few that has made me change my thoughts about one thing basic.
The which means of luxurious has advanced.
One of the automotive trade’s oldest tendencies is simple to grasp: automobile options democratize over time. Automakers introduce a brand new function on high-end, ultra-luxury vehicles. It’s uncommon, at first. But, as they construct extra of it, it will get cheaper to construct. Through economies of scale, it makes its method down into higher trim ranges of extra inexpensive vehicles, and, ultimately, even to financial system vehicles.
This has reached extremes.
Not way back, I sat in a 2026 Nissan Leaf — on the time probably the most inexpensive electrical automobile in America — and marveled that it had convincing artificial leather-based, an expanse of curved display that mirrors your telephone, an electrochromic roof, headrest audio system, and different options you’d have anticipated solely in luxurious vehicles not way back.
By the previous guidelines, this attractive Malachite Green DBX S, with its almost $350,000 price ticket, ought to have luxuries Nissan customers have by no means even imagined.
It doesn’t. No massaging seats. No self-driving tech. No whiz-bang applied sciences it’s a must to analysis easy methods to use.
Instead, the DBX S has a savagely highly effective engine, steering, and suspension tuned with ardour, and, if you would like it, a baffle to make the exhaust louder. It’s not loaded with new applied sciences. It’s a brutally pure factor.
The 2026 Aston Martin DBX isn’t a multitool. It’s a knife.
It’s a finely made, art-quality Damascus metal knife, signed by the grasp smith who solid it, hand-sharpened for hours.
You can minimize with a multitool, and you’ll minimize with a museum-quality, one-of-a-kind chef’s knife. But it’s a must to attain a sure degree of sources in life for the high-quality knife to make sense as an funding when weighed towards a multitool.
I spent per week driving the DBX S round Washington, D.C., and its suburbs, and it modified my understanding of luxurious.
You don’t pay extra for the DBX as a result of it has extra options. You pay Aston Martin to strip them away. In the 2026 of the flowery Nissan Leaf, luxurious is the flexibility to purchase an distinctive single-purpose instrument.
Which Trim Level
Aston Martin builds simply two variations of the DBX: the 697-horsepower 707 and the 717-hp DBX S. They loaned me the S. Its configuration added greater than $60,000 value of choices, together with a $21,600 set of magnesium wheels. Wheels are what automotive engineers name “unsprung weight” — they sit exterior the suspension, so that they pull towards it in laborious cornering. Lighter wheels can drastically enhance observe efficiency. Spending a Nissan Versa’s value on lowering unsprung weight is smart for observe vehicles, however sitting on the visitors lights of the nation’s capital, they felt like maybe a bit underutilized for the value.
New 2026 Aston Martin DBX Prices
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Retail Price
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Fair Purchase Price (92620)
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707
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$261,000
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$313,000
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S
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$266,500
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$261,000
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Favorite Feature
Purists deride the thought of an Aston Martin SUV as a result of an SUV’s better weight and better middle of gravity are likely to make for slushier dealing with. But Aston Martin’s suspension engineers have labored incomprehensible magic to make the DBX deal with like a lighter automobile. That is available in half due to weight financial savings. Tricks like a carbon-fiber roof and a honeycomb grille make the DBX virtually 500 kilos lighter than a BMW M5 sedan. It additionally comes due to a triple-chamber air suspension, energetic anti-roll know-how, and a steering system just lately recalibrated with a shorter steering arm to tighten the texture. The outcome? I’ve pushed sports activities coupes that felt looser than this 5-seater.
What It’s Like to Drive
A twin-turbo 4.0-liter V8 sourced from Mercedes’ well-known AMG efficiency store, filled with rage, waits for you underneath the vented hood of the DBX S. In GT mode (the tame one), it’s surprisingly well-suited for an informal drive in visitors. In Sport, it wakes up, growls, and will get a bit of sensitive. In Sport+, it’s loud and will get the automobile from zero to 60 mph in simply 3.3 seconds, Aston Martin says.
It additionally sounds wonderful. Aston Martin is aware of this and supplies a button on the console to open an exhaust baffle to make the rumble louder.
Handling, as famous above, is outstanding for an SUV. I didn’t check Terrain mode, however nobody ought to be fooled into treating the DBX S as a rock crawler. This suspension is awfully good at making a family-hauling SUV deal with like a 2-seater sports activities coupe. It doubtless can enterprise off the pavement, however not go the place Range Rovers go.
Stopping energy comes due to carbon ceramic brakes designed to handle warmth nicely throughout repeated laborious braking. Brakes like which might be usually grabby on the journey to the drug retailer, however these handle on a regular basis duties casually.
Interior Comfort and Technology
The cabin of the DBX S is certainly not Spartan, nevertheless it doesn’t lean on heavy know-how and display floor the best way some rivals at this value level do. It makes clear that this can be a driving instrument, if a luxurious one.
That means a extremely sculpted dashboard internet hosting two screens the place you’d anticipate finding them, each fairly sized. It additionally means rows and rows of buttons — no must study touchscreen menus right here. Machined metal rollers for temperature and quantity really feel heavy to the contact — an indication of high quality.
My tester was upholstered in a coffee-and-one-cream shade of semi-aniline leather-based that Aston calls Bison Brown. As befits a automobile on this value vary, the gentle stuff is in every single place — good luck discovering a bit of plastic you possibly can contact on this factor.
The showcase know-how right here is Apple CarPlay Ultra. Apple CarPlay mirrors your telephone’s display on a automobile’s central touchscreen, providing you with entry to apps you would possibly use on the transfer by way of voice management and display faucets. CarPlay Ultra goes a step additional, taking on the driving force’s instrument display as nicely.
It means you possibly can management the automobile out of your telephone, even altering the temperature and drive modes. That has fairly restricted utility — you don’t choose up the telephone whereas driving.
But CarPlay Ultra additionally enables you to select from a number of show display kinds. Want a outstanding tachometer? Maps within the driver’s display quite than the central touchscreen? You can modify the driving force’s show together with your telephone. That has a bit extra utility, nevertheless it’s nonetheless one thing many luxurious vehicles help you do with out Apple’s intervention.
I discovered no purpose to dislike CarPlay Ultra, however no actual benefit to it, both.
The Bowers & Wilkins 23-speaker, 1,600-watt audio system is really distinctive, delivering crystal-clear sound throughout the complete sonic vary. But, as a $12,300 choice, it ought to be.
Rear seat lodging are massive sufficient even for tall adults, with an uncommon 40.9 inches of legroom. Shoulder and hip room, nevertheless, is likely to be a bit tight for 3.
Limitations
The DBX gives simply 23 cubic ft of storage behind the rear seats. You’ll discover extra in some subcompact SUVs. This is the Aston Martin with probably the most house. It’s nonetheless not the automobile you’d use with a dorm room’s value of furnishings.
Key Considerations
This automobile has few opponents, and every has a definite character. In this value vary, the Bentley Bentayga is extra luxurious and fewer athletic. The Lamborghini Urus would possibly beat it round a observe, however I’d like to look at the race. The Ferrari Purosangue is much more unique and expensive.
But you don’t comparability store hand-made chef’s knives, do you? You fee the one you need from an artisan you respect, and treasure it when it comes.
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