Aston Martin DBX SUV gets 550 PS Mercedes-AMG V8

It’s the home stretch for the Aston Martin DBX, which is set to be revealed to the world in December. Gaydon’s first SUV has entered the closing stages of testing – the most comprehensive in the company’s history, it claims – and to celebrate the milestone, it is revealing some key details of its crossover.

The first is that it will be powered by a version of Mercedes-AMG’s M177 4.0 litre twin-turbocharged V8, already seen in the Vantage and DB11 V8. In this application, it will produce an additional 40 PS over the aforementioned sports cars, bringing the total up to 550 PS and 700 Nm of torque. This makes it the most powerful V8 in Aston’s history.

The company says that while acceleration and top speed figures are still being finalised, the DBX has already repeatedly exceeded 180 mph (290 km/h) in high-speed testing. It also claims that the car delivers cornering speeds on par with the more focused Vantage, along with greater braking figures than even the flagship DBS Superleggera. Engineers have also regularly lapped the Nürburgring Nordschleife in under eight minutes.

We’ve already seen plenty of official photos showing lightly-disguised prototypes, and the images you see here show much the same thing, sporting a low-slung coupé-style profile, almond-shaped headlights, huge front grille and trademark flush door handles. While the rear end remains covered up, a new teaser shows that the car will feature the continuous tail light strip already found on the Vantage and DBS Superleggera.

The DBX will be built in a new factory in St Athan, Wales, which will also be used to produce electric Lagonda models in the future.