Ferrari Purosangue vs Bentley Bentayga S vs Aston Martin DBX707 | Super SUV Group Test

We took three of 2023's best super SUVs to find out which one is best. There was a time when pitting a Ferrari, Aston Martin and Bentley against each other would only mean one thing. A triple test of three low-slung GT supercars for those who want the ultimate luxury transport for a trip down to Saint-Tropez. An SUV would also feature, but only as the Oh, how times have changed. This is the Ferrari Pura Sangue, Aston Martin DBX707 and Bentley Bentayga. And love them or hate them, they are three luxury super SUVs that form a huge part of each manufacturer's balance sheet. The buyers asked for them and eventually everyone, including Ferrari, bowed to demand. We've already driven all three of these cars individually and for the most part, they're hugely impressive bits of kit, but this is the first time that all three have been on the same test. To pick a winner though, we can't just take these cars to a twisty road and chuck them around because despite the badges they wear, they're about so much more than outright speed and performance. Yep, that means we need to test things like cabin quality, refinement, comfort and even practicality. Can't we leave all that practicality stuff to the end though? Yeah, yeah, we can leave that to the end. And why don't we just go and drive them first? We'll do that. That's a good idea. We'll go and drive them first. First up, Ben Barry in the DBX707. This is the ultimate version of Aston Martin's SUV. It was, until a certain Ferrari came along, the most powerful SUV on sale in the UK and features upgrades to its suspension, brakes and of course, its powertrain. So out on the road then in the DBX707 and I think the first thing to say, you know, I'm in GT mode and this is a really cushy car, really luxurious, really refined as well. So you just glide around in this car. The engine is really underplayed as well, I'd say. So we've got the 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 but it's very, very low in the mix, very refined again. But the one thing that does kind of point to that more sporting flavour with the 707 when you're driving around slowly is the steering. It's really good. I would say, you know, it gets off to a good start by being architecturally correct. It's completely round, which is nice. The rim is nice and thin as well so you lock into it and feel nice and secure. And it's got these Alcantara sections here which add to a sense of tactility. Nicely weighted as well, it's not too heavy, it's not too light and it's nice and responsive without being too quick. So you feel really kind of keyed into this car straight away and it helps the weight and the length of this car melt away. You just feel ready to hustle it, basically. Now we've got different modes we can select here on this rotary dial. So if I step up to Sport, we can also select Manual mode to lock the gears in manual and independently adjust the suspension. We've got the ESC setting here as well that we can turn into Sport plus and turn off altogether. So already in the Sport setting, you can feel it's firmer but it's still perfectly acceptable. This is a very tricky British B road with some lumps and bumps in it and it's still riding this absolutely beautifully. Now we've got some corners coming up, let's see what it can do in the bends. This big Aston Martin, so tip it in, air suspension, anti-roll control and it just tips in there and grips and goes. It's amazing really what it can do, how much it can hold on and how entertaining it feels as well. It's actually stepping out so it's gripping at the front and as soon as you kind of ease into the power there, it's straight onto it, sending it to the back. It's a really engaging car to drive quickly. Now you can amp that up a little bit more going to Sport plus and actually even on a road like this, even this tricky road, Sport plus still works unbelievably. I wouldn't, I'd leave it in GT but you can get away with Sport plus which on most cars is just absolutely out of bounds, smooth racetrack only. Now the other thing that happens in Sport plus is the engine noise amps up and it comes into play more and of course as you're driving it faster the whole engine steps up and you're more aware of it as part of this driving experience. It is a really good engine, it's instantly responsive so I'm in third gear here and if I just accelerate now... Tiny little bit of lag but it picks up its heels very, very quickly. You can hear the noise is much more pronounced. I would say it's more of a kind of artificially enhanced sound than maybe I would like. I kind of wanted it to sound like, you know, Prince Charles bellowing down the exhaust pipes but it's a little bit more of a digitally enhanced sound, I would say slightly but very, very impressive. When you really accelerate hard as well, there's more sort of turbo whistle. You can hear it's running a lot of boost but overall... God, the way it handles is amazing. Overall, you know, very, very impressive. I've also got this nine-speed wet clutch gearbox. I would say that's maybe a slightly weak link in the chain here. It's not terrible by any means. It's not as fast as it could be and it's not maybe as smooth as it could be at all times. I think generally it works fine but room for improvement. Overall, I think the way this car nails that luxury brief that you expect from an Aston Martin SUV and then mixes in that extra sporting flavour, I just think it absolutely hits the nail on the head, this car. And, you know, I like it very much. I think it's a very, very good car. What a monster! Safe to say Ben was somewhat impressed with just how exciting the DBX 707 is to drive. So, to give him something rather different, we popped in behind the wheel of the Bentayga S, supposedly the sportiest version of this sumptuous SUV. So, out in the Bentley then and I think the first thing you know is just that this is a very comfort-focused, luxurious car, even more so than the Aston and a few things do that straight away. One is the seats. I actually feel like the seating position is lower than the Aston and that's my perception anyway so in some ways that's more sporting but generally the feeling, you know, it's a wider base to the seats, more accommodating for larger frames. There's less lateral support. You do get lateral support here but there's less of it than the Aston and just generally the cushioning is just plumper and plusher so this is the nicer place to spend a long journey. The other thing is the suspension. It's really cushy and its comfort setting is super cushy. It just almost sighs into a compression and settles gorgeously so a lovely way to waft around and the other thing is the steering which feels definitely less connected, more isolated than the Aston and significantly slower as well. Now, there are a few things that are going on feeding into that and that's because we've got three driving modes, Comfort and Bentley and, you know, Bentley is like a point for a chef cooking his steak. It's how Bentley thinks it should be done and Comfort and Bentley are the same as they always were and the difference comes with Sport. So if we just dial it up to Sport, you get 15% more air spring stiffness. Let's just roll it into these corners. Look, it's already protesting more than the Aston. It feels more of a heavy car that's not quite at ease with itself but it's certainly more sporting than the standard setting and very, very neutral but still quite soft and comfort focused, as capable as it is. I think interestingly, you know, the Aston is happier when you're on a sort of tightrope at the limit and it's happier tiptoeing along that tightrope whereas the Bentley, when you get to the limit, it starts to unravel and just feels a little bit uncomfortable with itself. I think it's better to step back from that and go maybe seven, eight tenths, cover ground quickly without really leaning on what it's capable of when it does start to feel clumsy and unravel a bit. Now, the other thing to talk about is the gearbox. It's a standard eight-speed automatic gearbox torque converter and I think it suits this car very well, especially that luxury brief. So it just glides through its ratios, very, very smooth and refined at low speed and I think when you're driving quickly, it's quick enough. It's not bonkers quick but it's quick enough and it does it without sort of thunking or making a mess. So yeah, good sort of match for this car's character. Interestingly with the S, they haven't given this more power versus the basic V8. We've still got 542 brake horsepower so even though it costs the same money at about £190,000 as the DBX 707, it's way down on power at 542 versus 697 brake horsepower. It is also a lot heavier, about 100 kilos heavier than the Aston. So it all adds up to a driving experience that just isn't anywhere near as quick even though it's still plenty fast enough. Let's see, we're at three and a bit. So let's get up to 3,000 rpm and accelerate in second gear. Little bit of lag, not much. You can feel those gear shifts really coming in. So it's still a very quick car but versus the Aston, it's nowhere near. And I think the interesting thing here and maybe the missed opportunity is that it's very much like the standard driving experience most of the time and you could argue this could just replace the standard car which they've kept on sale but it means that the heavy lifting is done by the exterior design and the interior design really on this car rather than the driving experience. So I think overall, they've missed a bit of a trick in making this a slightly more aggressive and more involving driving experience as much as it's a lovely way to cover ground quickly and just waft around in generally. So the Bentley and Aston Martin have proved themselves to be quite different but what about the newest car in this test? The Ferrari Purasangue. It's the most expensive and the most powerful car here and it's also the one that Ferrari said they'd never make. So what's it really like in the flesh? Well, turn your speakers up and have a listen. I'll ever be a day when I tire of the sound of a V12 Ferrari engine. Doesn't matter what it's in, it is phenomenal. Just listen to this. It's not quite the raw unfiltered sound of the 812 Superfast but it's still utterly, utterly glorious as are the responses and the gear changes and just pretty much everything about this powertrain. My word. The Bentley and the Aston sound all right but they're not on a level with this. This is something else. It'll do nought to 62 miles an hour in 3.3 seconds which is very fast but when you're going to the red line it's not quite as ferociously quick. It's still impressive but you will see a compromise to more traditional Ferrari V12s. But you know what? You don't need to drive it all the way to the red line. It will go over 8,000 rpm which is phenomenal but because 80% of the torque is available from 2,100 rpm you don't really need to rev it all the way if you don't want to. It's still got lots and lots of flexibility which is obviously essential for an SUV that you're going to drive every day and not want to wring it out every gear change as tempting as that is. Having all that torque though does make it surprisingly easy to drive. It's not quite as refined or relaxed as the Bentley for example but you know the ride is good considering the ginormous wheels on this thing. It's a squeak of wind noise and speed sure but you can easily do big, big miles in this. I'm not a huge fan of the seats to be honest with you but I think that's a personal preference depending on your body shape because otherwise this is a really nice thing to cover big distances in. Like I did earlier this year in our Ferrari Pura Sangue first drive review. You can definitely forget off-roading however. Ferrari admits the Pura Sangue isn't designed for anything more than a gravel track or snowy road as most customers don't demand it. You also can't tow anything and the four-wheel drive system is similar to the one seen on the GTC4 Lusso in that power for the front wheels is sent via a power transfer unit rather than an eight-speed auto. The four-wheel drive system isn't the only thing that the Pura Sangue does differently to its rivals because this car hasn't got conventional anti-roll bars. Instead it's got something called Multimatic True Active Spool Valve System which is a mouthful but what it does is it's electric motors on each corner of the car that apply a force to the axis of the relevant damper. The result is up to 50% less roll and pitch angles, a better ride quality and the ability to manipulate the centre of gravity as the car travels through a corner. Agility like this simply should not be possible in an SUV but somehow the Pura Sangue pulls it off. You know Ferrari's chief development driver Raffaele De Simone reckons that this is the quickest car that Ferrari makes across an unfamiliar country road and you can see what he's talking about. It's so on your side and it just cuts so cleanly into a corner. You can't do that in many SUVs. Wow! I love just the general agility is unbelievable. Ferrari's bumpy road mode has gone. Instead you've got a very simple soft, medium and hard damper setting and those are the options that you've got and it means that you can adapt it quite precisely actually to whatever road you're on and together with the rest of Ferrari's various assistance technology that helps you become, well, look like a better driver. It's very effective. If I am being super critical though I would question Ferrari's claim that this car isn't compromised versus traditional front engine V12 GTs because those things are so well balanced and honed and just impeccable to drive that you can't add this much weight and height and expect it to deliver the same results. There is always going to be a compromise otherwise why couldn't they have made the lower, lighter car better? That's just how the laws of physics work and it's very hard to cheat that but on a dynamic level this car for me gets so much closer to those traditional V12 Ferraris than it has any right to. It's honestly extraordinary. The Ferrari delivered predictably outstanding results on the road. It really was utterly incredible to drive something so big and heavy yet so much fun but as we said at the beginning it's not all about the driving experience so to see how each contender's cabin and tech held up we swapped cars and made ourselves comfortable starting with the Aston Martin. So a couple of things hit you as soon as you climb in the DBX 707 and the first is the smell. It smells very expensive and it smells of leather. It fills your nostrils like a Cuban cigar. Really is quite overpowering but actually in a good way because you just know that this is the finest quality hide around and it's also got very nice stitching as well. Other thing you notice is that it does feel pretty dated. Really quite dated actually. I think this is the most dated cabin of all three cars just because of the general design around the centre console the way the buttons are laid out and the infotainment system which we'll get on to in a bit. What I like about these buttons in the middle here though apart from the fact that they're quite plasticky and a bit cheap feeling is that you can adjust things like the exhaust the air suspension going up and down and the dampers individually without having to go into the drive mode which is actually quite handy if you want to make small adjustments. So I like that and you can also see that with this 707 you've got a rotary dial to control the drive mode so that's different from the regular DBX and you've also got the 16-way sports seats that are fitted as standard rather than being an option like they are in the regular DBX. The driving position is a pleasant surprise actually for such a ginormous car because sitting here the bonnet feels smaller and narrower than you'd expect it to be so it makes it easier to place the car along the road and also this steering wheel is trimmed very nicely in Alcantara it's round which is good and it's got a thin rim and that makes the car feel lighter than it really is it's actually a very very clever trick but it definitely works and also these carbon paddles have got a really nice action to them so I like all that. The digital dashboard display there are more up-to-date ones but the nice analog dials gives it a good sense of class and then the infotainment system this is 100% my biggest gripe with this car because remember this is a £200,000 super SUV and the infotainment system is basically a re-skinned version of an older Mercedes-Benz unit so if you were to get yourself a nice A-Class now it would have a more up-to-date infotainment system than this thing does which seems weird really and a little bit upsetting if you're spending that kind of money especially as Aston Martin does now have its own infotainment system which we've seen on the DB12 and is very good but unfortunately it's not on the DBX so you're left with something that is controlled with this rotary dial but it's also half covered up by the old Mercedes-Benz style touchpad so that's a bit strange and the screen itself isn't a touchscreen we'd like it to be both ideally because then you can have the convenience of the rotary dial and the convenience of using Apple CarPlay with a touchscreen and actually Apple CarPlay isn't wireless you've got to plug it in small things but when tech is so important now in expensive luxury cars like this one you have to count them so in summary it does get a few things right such as this nice driving position the steering wheel the adjustable buttons and just the general feel of grandeur in here is quite satisfying but that infotainment it does let the side down a little bit and that's a shame now I've got to say getting in the Bentley it's like being reacquainted with an old friend it feels so comfortable and familiar in here it's utterly utterly lovely it's got a nice sense of grandeur like you get in the Aston Martin but just turned up even more and it also feels more polished and more like a quality product I actually think it also feels a little bit last generation but then I'm not convinced that whatever the next generation will be will actually be any better than this because I think it's a really nice balance between screens and buttons it just feels so logical this particular car has got the two-tone beluga and hot spur leather it's got the high gloss carbon fiber everywhere and it's also got the 1780 kilowatt name audio system you've got these grills that are dotted all around the car and those are the speaker grills they look amazing and the sound they produce is phenomenal won't try and play it through the speakers now because you won't get the full effect but trust me if you never sit in one of these things listen to the stereo because it is mind-blowing the infotainment system is miles better than the one in the Aston Martin it does feel like it could be a bit last generation like the rest of the cabin but again I'm not convinced that what's going to follow could really be that much better because it's touchscreen it's really responsive it's got loads of functionality easy to use graphics look nice and also the digital dashboard display tons of functionality and again it just shows you all the information that you need and it's there at the click of a button and it just does it when you ask for it sounds simple but actually it's not as simple as it really should be but this car nails it also the head-up display super clear as well there are some nice details in here which I think are worth pointing out the clock looks a million dollars these air vent controls lovely action to them and then the dials they've all got different clicks to them and it's a really good quality click feels like they've thought about it the driving position in the Bentley is also nicely judged so you can go quite low down this is the lowest setting that I've got or you can obviously lift it pretty high up and there's no great intrusion up there the steering wheel comes out into a good position you've got a nice metal knurl to adjust it with and the steering wheel itself is also a very good shape it's nice and round and it's beautifully trimmed obviously the only quality issue actually that I have with this cabin is and bear with me here the gear lever because obviously this is a really big touch point and for some reason Bentley has chosen to finish it with what feels and sounds like a plastic-y chrome effect and when all the other materials in here are so nicely judged and put together this kind of feels a little bit like an afterthought and obviously you've got your hand on it a lot so that's a bit of a shame but otherwise this cabin honestly is about as good as it gets I reckon I really really like it so sitting inside Ferrari's first four-door four-seat car then and the first thing to comment on really is the driving position because just like the exterior that's much lower slung you really do sit low down in this car plus you can really drop this seat right down on the deck for a very very sporty driving position the steering wheel really adds to that as well so it's a classic Ferrari sort of supercar steering with a really nice thin rim we've got the shift lights at the top here your thumbs just drop into it so you feel like you're really kind of locked into it all your controls here like an F1 driver including the manettino and these long slender shift paddles fixed to the steering column now one thing I would say about the driving position is I'm six foot one, six foot one and a bit which is the important little bit as well don't forget that but you know I can go back as far as I need to go back but if I put the seat back a bit further it's just maybe an inch or two, inch and a half further back so fine for me but maybe if you're six three, six four you might be at the limit of what you can get comfortable with now in terms of visibility you've got a long roll, a dash ahead of us and because we've got that glorious V12 pushed right back in a front mid-mounted position it allows that bonnet line to plunge and look really spectacular from the outside but it doesn't give you much of a visual reference as you're positioning the car on the road so you kind of you know especially if you're sitting low down you're kind of having to guess a little bit where the corners of the car are and if you look over your shoulder you've got really chunky D pillars so you're definitely going to be relying on the reversing camera which this car does have to get it parked safely so overall it's a really sporty environment here I think it could do with more visual interest so you know perhaps it doesn't help that this car is all finished in black but perhaps there are a few kind of too many expanses of nothing at all so if you look here it's quite a wide open expanse of just black similarly here and if you look behind the rear seats there as well the gap between the two rear seats it's a little bit plain and maybe it just needs a little bit of extra interest in this interior another crucial element here is the infotainment system which is new so unfortunately you don't get a standard central touchscreen instead it's all controlled via the steering wheel again and displayed on this screen in front of you I've got a home button here that I can access this horizontal menu for features like vehicle, audio, apple carplay and scroll through it and it actually sounds like my cat throwing up if you listen to it luckily you can turn that off but then once you go into the vertical menus it sort of turns into a game of table tennis but that's a cat being sick definitely there it's not very responsive either so I'm trying to move up and down and it's not quite doing what I want it to do so you know you can also hear on the touchscreen on this side the passenger gets one but clearly the driver can't reach over here but they can sort of reduce some of your workload with things like infotainment settings, choosing a radio station and they can also keep an eye on your driving so how warm the temperatures are for the tyres and also your revs and things like that but overall I think I'd much rather just have a regular you know touchscreen here or something you can control with a rotary dial the other thing that's lacking here is there's no sat-nav and that's not just this car you cannot get sat-nav on the pura sangue so you know you have to use apple car play or android auto so just make sure you've got a good data plan so overall it's a nice sporty driving position four people can sit in here in comfort I'd say the interior could have more visual interest and the infotainment system could be improved Ben and I both agreed that the Bentley's cabin was the nicest place to sit and its tech was the easiest to use but which car is the most practical? So as promised we're now going to spend a couple of minutes talking about practicality and if you're not interested in that then feel free to skip forward to the next section because yeah it can be a little bit dull but if you are interested then we have some boot capacity figures for you such as the Aston Martin has the biggest boot on paper and then the Ferrari and the Bentley are around about the same but they do use different methods to measure this boot space so it's not a hundred percent but I can confirm that the Aston Martin does have a nice chunky load bay area which is very useful Ben what do you think of the rear seat space if you're sitting in the back? Yeah I mean I think obviously the Ferrari is going to be the most compromised it's got the four seat layout so it's the only one with just four seats it's a more rakish roofline but saying that you know I'd happily spend a journey back there I can get in there my head's just about touching the roof but I would spend a journey there the other two there's more space in the Aston and the Bentley clearly they're both full five seaters as well I would say the back of the Aston the seats are a little bit firmer or they're quite firm really plenty of space though and I really like that panoramic roof it really lets that light in it's really quite a clear roof really lightens that cabin but the Bentley the seats you know typical Bentley it's where you would want to be chauffeured in that car it's really comfortable really squishy seat so if I was going to sit in one car for a long journey it would definitely be the Bentley yeah I think I have to agree as well because like you said they've continued the cabin experience from the front into the back of the Bentley it's still got all the nice details and squishy leather and it just feels like more of an event than it does sitting in the back of the DBX and also with the Bentley you can get it in four seat, five seat and seven seat configuration which is flexibility wise fantastic so I actually think they're both pretty equal when it comes to outright space and usability but if I had to sit in the back of one of them or go on holiday in one of them I think from a purely practical point of view the Bentley clinches it This was an intriguing triple test because each car was in with a genuine shout of winning for very different reasons the Bentley was the most comfortable had the best tech spacious and very easy to use the Ferrari looks stunning and is utterly sensational to drive and the Aston Martin is a surprisingly good all-rounder with huge bandwidth across what it could do and as such the DBX 707 was Ben's pick of the three with the Ferrari being my personal choice therefore we can just about call it a draw and confirm that all three manufacturers have gotten very good at building SUVs very quickly if you're in a position to afford one then wow you seriously are spoiled for choice