Joining the cadre of ultraluxury and exotic SUVs this year is the Aston Martin DBX. Aston’s first SUV is powered by a 4.0-liter twin-turbocharged V-8 engine making 542 hp and 516 pound-feet of torque and has all-wheel drive. The first DBX rolled off the automaker’s production line in Wales in July. Here’s a batch of initial DBX reviews from the automotive media.

“While drifting and off-roading the DBX is good fun, the real test begins when we take it on a 300-mile tour of some of England’s best roads. The drive, you will not be surprised to hear, is conducted in traditional British rain. The V-8 actually impresses more when asked to do less, its effortless muscularity and keen low-rev response is well-suited for relaxed cruising. Refinement is good, markedly better than in Aston’s traditional sports cars, and although the DBX’s cabin lacks the sepulchral hush of something like a Rolls-Royce Cullinan or Mercedes GLS in the softest GT setting, the air springs allow for a compliant ride.

“Even in its most relaxed mode, chassis discipline is never lacking. Once onto the lonely and demanding roads that cross the bleak emptiness of the Exmoor National Park, the DBX shows remarkable body control over roller coaster dips and compressions, the gentle springing perfectly matched by the no-nonsense adaptive dampers. In its GT mode the DBX never feels wayward, and in Sport it doesn’t feel harsh, the suspension refusing to be caught out by anything we could find to throw at it. Traction was impressive and the steering accurate enough to keep the DBX on a chosen line at speeds we are sure none of the company’s sports cars could have matched over such tough terrain.”

— Mike Duff, Car and Driver

“Under the hood is a familiar 4.0-liter 542 bhp 516 lb-ft turbocharged V-8 mated to a nine-speed automatic gearbox. 0-60 mph takes 4.3 seconds and it’ll crack 181 mph according to Aston Martin. It’ll also get 16.4 mpg in mixed driving thanks to various fuel-sipping technologies.

“With all that on board you’ll expect it to be something of a monster. Depending on your driving mode, it doesn’t have to be. In the car’s standard GT setting it performs admirably as ‘a car.’ Its triple-chamber air springs keep things soft, absorbing lumps and bumps on the pavement, leaving occupants in a cloud of luxury. Its steering feels light, so much so that only the terminally weak would have trouble using it. The side effect of the light steering is that there’s not a great amount of feedback on offer. On a cruise it’s quiet, the double-glazed windows shield you from the noise of the outside world admirably. A highway jaunt will leave you refreshed as anything. If someone is hogging your lane, stab the gas and you’ll catapult past them alarmingly quickly. Even without the turned-up wick you get in Sport or Sport+ mode, it’s savagely fast.”

— Alex Goy, Road & Track

“To really appreciate how much of a game-changer the Aston Martin DBX is, head to a racetrack, select Sport+ mode and switch off all the nannies. And be prepared to be blown away. It is a staggeringly good thing to drive fast, an SUV you can genuinely push with passion and verve and all the skill you can muster, without feeling you’re constantly at war with the laws of physics. On summer tires, there’s a deftness and precision at the front end you simply won’t feel in any other SUV apart from, perhaps, the Alfa Romeo Stelvio Q4 Quadrifoglio. The Aston rotates beautifully on corner entry, stays flat all the way through and dances on the throttle on the way out, exiting with just a smidgen of perfectly poised opposite lock as the e-diff optimizes the torque flow.

“Unlike the Porsche Cayenne Turbo or Bentley Bentayga, or even the spectacularly fast Lamborghini Urus, the Aston never feels like it’s murdering the front tires when you push it hard, and it doesn’t need the rear-steering system fitted to all three to help it turn in to corners. Instead of feeling like a tall, nose-heavy truck, the DBX drives more like a low-slung gran turismo, the 4Matic system sending up to 100 percent of the drive to the rear axle, and no more than 47 percent to the front. It can understeer if you get on the gas too early, but you instantly feel the slip, with the tire sliding across the surface rather than trying to roll off the rim, and can quickly adjust by easing off the throttle momentarily to get the chassis to rotate and then going to power to keep it all nicely balanced.”

— Angus MacKenzie, Motor Trend

“Now to the driver’s seat. And where to go first? Well, for me it’s an off-road course. Not the most vicious course I’ve ever driven, but in the DBX’s Terrain Plus mode the steep, loose-surface ascents and descents are brushed aside with ease. A tight, muddy trail through some woods with deeply rutted tracks is also no problem. If anything, I’d like a slightly less responsive throttle at the top of its travel for this sort of work, but that’s a nitpick rather than a big issue. Essentially, you can be confident that when you go shooting or to a point-to-point on the weekend and everyone parks in a muddy field, you’ll be able to extricate yourself without embarrassment. Probably best to spec the all-season tires, though.

“Next up for the DBX is the other extreme: a trip round the Stowe circuit at Silverstone. This fairly tight little track is what Aston Martin uses for a lot of its dynamic development, and while I don’t expect to see many DBXes in pit lanes, it’s nonetheless fun to see what it can do with the shackles off. Winding the drive mode all the way down to the other end of the air suspension’s spectrum in Sport Plus, the most impressive thing around the track is how flat and controlled the 48-volt anti-roll system keeps the car. The quick steering seems to have the front brakes activating quite a lot on the way into corners, I think mostly through the torque-vectoring-via-brake system rather than the stability control. On the way out of corners, the DBX certainly feels very rear-biased in its torque distribution.”

— Henry Catchpole, Roadshow by CNET

“Given the opportunity to push (and drop the ride height a little for schporty reactions), it reveals a generally very safe balance with leanings towards rear-wheel-drive responses, a tidy, not-very-SUV set of dynamic traits. Basically it’s pitched somewhere between a full-fat fast SUV and an actual AM GT car. Some of that is the fact that it’s quite low — at 1,680 mm, it’s some 60 mm lower than, say, a Bentley Bentayga — but there’s a keenness that’s surprising. It’s also marginally less satisfying on the track. Now, circuits are not where SUVs of any stripe feel comfortable or even rational, but the DBX really can lay claim to being a properly sporting thing. It’s not slick with speed, mind. It doesn’t feel like it slices through the air like a supercar, more a battering ram of performance with less barn-door aesthetic than the usual fast SUV. But it roars and bellows in all the right ways, making it feel properly rapid. The ‘box isn’t the happiest going full-bore either, despite the paddle shifters behind the wheel. Its responsive enough on upchanges, but really doesn’t want to hammer a gear unless it’s down in the comfortable end of the rev range.”

— Top Gear