Aston Martin Rapide

Based on Aston Martin’s unique VH architecture, the Rapide combines the company’s commitment to power, beauty and soul with space and practicality.

It stands for stylistic excellence, market innovation and flexible manufacturing. The Rapide is the epitome of Aston Martin’s low-volume, high-technology approach, the synergy of modern methods and materials with traditional skills to create a new form of craftsmanship for the 21st century.

While the Rapide retains Aston Martin’s inherent design characteristics the additional length and extra doors build upon the DB9’s taut, poised stance, generating a natural, even flow and a dynamic sensation that’s conveyed even when the Rapide is standing still. “In terms of elegance the Rapide is adding value to the DB9’s undisputed elegance and subtle understatement,” says Dr Ulrich Bez, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Aston Martin. “Our cars must look beautiful from all angles, and the four-door is very well balanced.” Practicality and power are the Rapide’s signature qualities, but above all it is recognisably an Aston Martin, a testament to the strength of the marque’s design language. The Rapide’s four-door body provides greater access to the extended architecture, making it a performance car for every occasion. “The proportions must be perfect,” says Dr Bez, “if we couldn’t achieve this then we wouldn’t have made the car.”

Design Ethos

The visual language of Aston Martin is highly distinctive. Across a range of three cars, the company’s design team, led by Design Director Marek Reichman, fulfils Aston Martin’s core values – power, beauty and soul – with bodywork that is taut, poised and muscular. “The brand is about the driving experience,” says Reichman, explaining how the concept is intended to provide everything customers have to come to expect from an Aston Martin, and more. “We wanted to make the most beautiful four-door car in the world,” he says, as he traces the Rapide’s development from a series of exploratory sketches in the Summer of 2005 to the finished, fully-functioning prototype. In the process, Reichman and his team explored the way the Rapide might be used, where and when it would be driven, even who would be driving. The four-door body was a natural way of providing access to the Rapide’s increased interior space, part of Aston Martin’s commitment to design usability. “If there’s a space then you should also offer accessibility, otherwise you’re not being honest,” explains Dr Bez.

The Rapide continues Aston Martin’s reputation for highly-tailored, individual cockpits. The trademark glass starter button is a small element of theatre that is also beautiful and tactile, the perfect first point of contact with the car. Providing sporty accommodation for four passengers in such a low and beautiful coupé presents a formidable packaging challenge.

Sitting low to the ground, just four centimetres higher than a DB9, the interior is an exquisite leather-swathed package, with custom-embossed shagreen hide specially sourced for the Rapide. “It’s very cosseting,”admits Reichman, “it’s about creating a personal experience of the journey.” Like a set of exquisite hand-tooled luggage, the interior is compact yet also surprisingly spacious, with great attention to detail, like the extensive map and accessory storage and the mood lighting that maximises the feeling of volume.

An Aston Martin is about elegance, power and innovation, a bespoke form constructed to high standards that provide the model definition of 21st century design and engineering execution.

The Rapide is a seminal evocation of Aston Martin’s recent history, proof positive that the high performance four-door automobile need not imitate the conservative three-box saloon; it can be a car of extreme elegance and beauty. A sporting coupé with real heritage, the Rapide is a practical choice that expresses the pure emotion and passion that underpins the Aston Martin marque, its rich heritage and design DNA.

Aston Martin begins the 21st century with almost limitless potential. As one of the strongest and most recognisable brands in automotive history, the company now has the products, technology, production facilities and distribution network to offer unparalleled choice in this market segment, able to move rapidly from prototyping to concept to production. The company’s fast-expanding global dealership network continues to revolutionise the high-performance sales environment, with a series of crisp, contemporary showrooms that highlight the very best in modern architecture and design, making them the perfect backdrop for the product.

Aston Martin has always been about truth to materials: wood is valued for its structural properties and appearance, as are aluminium, glass and leather, while carbon fibre is utilised for its strength and weight-saving abilities and not just a showy finish. A transparent polycarbonate roof brings an increased sense of spatial awareness, opening up the passengers’ vistas beyond the driver’s focus on the road ahead. This ultra-light transparent material is a first for the company. The Rapide has dual climate zones, and the luxuriously appointed rear seats come with their own DVD screens and controls for the audio system and environmental system.

The dashboard is very driver-focused, the three passengers can also be as engaged and involved in the journey. For example, the satellite navigation system is fully accessible to all passengers, with a handheld Bluetooth unit that allows rear seat passengers to add their input to the route ahead. It’s this level of involvement that characterises the Aston Martin experience, and it is vital that both driver and passengers can share it.

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