Although it's pretty tiny even by today's standards, the exotic British manufacturer Aston Martin didn't take any time off this summer and remained quite busy during July and August.
First, they celebrated the marque's 110th anniversary with the V12-powered, manual transmission Aston Martin Valour, which will be produced in just 110 examples. After rocking our V12 world, they returned to V8 shenanigans for the upcoming Monterey Car Week. So, they will present the 671-hp Aston Martin DB12 Volante at The Quail and the exclusive clubhouse Aston Martin Club 1913 at Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance over the weekend.
Naturally, that attracted much attention worldwide and across the vast expanses of some parallel universe. For example, the imaginative realm of digital car content creators wants even more Aston Martin action. And since the sports car department was quite well covered by the latest V8 and V12 OEM apparitions, all that was left was to fiddle with the brand's one and only crossover SUV.
Dubbed Aston Martin DBX, this mid-size luxury CUV appeared after much anticipation in 2020 as the company's first-ever SUV. Intended as a sporty yet ritzy take on the ultra-luxury super-SUV genre, it is powered by Mercedes-AMG's M177 4.0-litre twin-turbocharged V8 engine with 550 ps/542 hp and 700 Nm (516 lb-ft) of torque. However, if you feel that's insufficient and sprinting to 100 kph (62 mph) in 4.5 seconds en route to a max speed of 292 kph (181 mph), there's a neat solution.
Aston Martin also unveiled a flagship model in 2022, dubbed DBX 707, as a nod to the M177's new output of 707 ps (697 hp) and 900 Nm (664 lb-ft). That way, it's a true super-SUV with a zero to 60 mph (96 kph) time of 3.1 seconds and a maximum speed of 310 kph (193 mph). However, probably owing to the somewhat quirky styling (and other factors, such as price and aftermarket hype), the Aston Martin DBX and DBX 707 never took flight to challenge the established king of the hill.
That would be Lamborghini's Urus, of course, which doesn't even have the same power levels as the DBX 707 in Urus S or Urus Performante form – they were tuned to a devilish 666 ps (657 hp), which is way less than a DBX 707. As such, maybe it's time Aston did something about the DBX matters – such as giving it a mid-cycle refresh.
Well, suppose the company doesn't take action in the real world. In that case, Dimas Ramadhan, the virtual automotive artist behind the Digimods DESIGN channel on YouTube, has quickly taken up the task of revealing the facelifted DBX - in CGI. However, this isn't one of his finer jobs. Entirely on the contrary, unfortunately. Remember how we just said the DBX has a rather quirky design – at least for an Aston Martin? The pixel master just exaggerated things – all with the help of digital DNA stolen from the V12-powered Valour!
Aurel has aimed high all his life (literally, at 16 he was flying gliders all by himself) so in 2006 he switched careers and got hired as a writer at his favorite magazine. Since then, his work has been published both by print and online outlets, most recently right here, on autoevolution. Full profile
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