Aside from its stunning styling and looks, you might be wondering what all the fuss is about about the Aston Martin Rapide. You could say that it is a competitor to the Porsche Panamera and Maserati Quattroporte, however the Rapide is priced much, much higher than its two rivals with a price tag of over two hundred thousand dollars. The Aston Martin CEO has called the Rapide the world’s first four-door supercar, a pretty big claim considering it’s not as fast as the Porsche Panamera Turbo.
The Rapide shares its six-liter, four hundred and seventy-horsepower V12 engine and six-speed automatic gearbox with the DB9, and can achieve a 0-60 time of around five seconds. The Rapide’s weight distribution, low center of gravity, and immensely rigid chassis combine to form a true four-door sports car.
In reality, the Rapide is more of a Grand Tourer to drive than a thoroughbred sports car, and the steering feels correspondingly light. However, unlike high-end luxury sedans, such as the BMW 7 Series or Mercedes S-Class, there are none of the meandering side-to-side movements that you may experience when cornering. On Rapide, the suspension can be tightened even more for a very firm ride. Activate sport mode and you can increase throttle response and the six-speed transmission keeps revs even higher, making acceleration sharper.
The Rapide is the kind of car you can drive in all day, as long as you are in one of the front seats. Despite being a four-door, the rear seats are quite comfortable, although to be fair, they can accommodate an adult passenger in relative comfort. The interior is drowned in leather and everything inside the interior that looks like metal is metal – no cheap plastic trim to sneak in here. Most of the dash is in common with the Aston Martin DBS and, in addition to the rear passenger space, there is a surprising amount of trunk space, almost on par with an everyday sedan.
It is difficult to know exactly where the Aston Martin will fit in the market. Considerably more expensive than its main rivals, but without the performance gain to match the higher price, the Rapide is more likely to rely on exclusivity as its main draw for potential buyers: a limited production of around just three thousand means that prices and convenience will remain high for years to come.
