Aston Martin delivers a true supercar with seats for
four. Road Test Editor HOWARD WALKER is shaken and stirred!
Aston-Martin’s brand new, breathtakingly gorgeous Rapide is the British boutique carmaker’s first ever four-door, four-seat production sports car. And about time too, for here is the perfect balance between performance and practicality, versatility and velocity.
But despite its quartet of doors, don’t even think of pigeonholing it as a sedan. Or worse still, a Porsche Panamera rival. This is a true, red-corpuscled, performance-focused super-coupe that, on occasion, can allow 007 to give a ride to M, Q, and the lovely Miss Moneypenny.
Just how red-blooded is it? Hoist that sexy, sculpted aluminum hood and there filling every spare inch is a thundering 6.0-liter V12 from Aston’s DB9 sports car. With a nuclear-like 470 horsepower, it has the muscle to launch the Rapide from standstill to 60 mph in a whisker over five seconds. And take it on to a top speed of 188 mph.
In the metal, the $200,000 Aston is just drop-dead gorgeous. The car is only five inches shorter than an S-Class Merc yet its roof sits two inches lower than a Porsche Panamera. This is one low car. Yet so balanced are the car’s proportions, so elegant is that coupe-like roofline that it’s hard to tell there are two extra doors back there.
And those two doors are hinged so they open outwards and upwards, like the wings of a swan, mimicking those up front.
You do need the bodily dexterity of a Caribbean limbo dancer to slide in the back seat. The door openings are pretty tight and the seats narrow, with foot space under the front seats at a definite premium. Yet somehow it all works and a couple of adults would be perfectly comfy back there for a trip across town for dinner.
But the Rapide offers the kind of luggage space that sports cars only dream about. With the rear seats in place there’s room for a couple of big, squashy bags. Flip forward the rear seatbacks and over 26 cubic feet of luggage can be swallowed.
And as you’d expect of an Aston, the cabin is a visual and tactile delight, with acres of glove-soft hand-stitched leather – 10 complete hides are used for each interior – along with matt-finished walnut and silvery aluminum. The standard-equipment 15-speaker, 1,000-watt Bang and Olufsen BeoSound audio system wouldn’t sound out of place in a dance club!
To extract the best driving joy out of this sleek four-door, press the Sport button on the dash and the suspension gets firmed-up, the six-speed automatic becomes even more eager to shift, and the engine revs a little harder.
The result is pure driving excitement, as the car will slingshot from one bend to the next, accompanied by one of the most thrilling soundtracks a car can produce. And with laser-sharp steering, fabulous grip from the sticky 20-inch gumballs at each corner, and giant brakes, the Rapide will reward the most enthusiastic of drivers.
Yet if your daily drive is a commute to Tampa on I-75, the Aston will do that too, cruising effortless with hardly a hush from under the hood, and a ride that is Bentley-esque
in its smoothness.
Here is a car that does everything so well and with so much style and elegance. The world’s sexiest four-door, four-seat sports car? You bet.
For more information about the Rapide and the full line of Aston Martin cars, please visit http://www.astonmartin.com/thecars/buildyourastonmartin