The Aston Martin Rapide concept is a four-door, high performance coupé of remarkable grace and poise. Based on Aston Martin's unique VH (Vertical/Horizontal) architecture, the Rapide combines the company's commitment to power, beauty and soul wîth space and practicality for every eventuality. 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 wîth traditional skills to create a new form of craftsmanship for the 21st century. 
Únderpinning the Rapide concept is Aston Martin's VH architecture, developed to offer exceptional manufacturing flexibility. This high-strength, low-mass architecture forms the backbone of the current generation of Aston Martins, spearheaded by the DB9 Coupé and flanked by the DB9 Volante and the Vantage. 
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 – wîth 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 wîth 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, wîth 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, wîth great attention to detail, like the extensive map and accessory storage and the mood lighting that maximises the feeling of volume.
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 utilized 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 wîth 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, wîth 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.
The generous rear luggage compartment is accessed via a hatchback, a practical feature shared wîth the Vantage and the pioneering DB2/4 of 1952. In addition, each rear seat folds down individually, allowing for myriad interior options, be it three players plus three sets of golf clubs, or four people and their skis, which slot neatly above the central console. To give the concept a real sense of occasion, the feeling that every journey ends in an event, the interiors team have incorporated a chiller cabinet in the boot, perfectly shaped to hold a single Magnum of Jacquesson champagne, along wîth four elegant flutes.
The clock is an integral part of the Rapide's elegant dashboard. For this element, Aston Martin turned to their existing partners Jaeger-LeCoultre, world leaders in fine timekeeping and original manufacturers of dials in Aston Martins as far back as the 1929 1.5 Litre First Series. The Swiss watchmaker, which dates back to 1833, also created the exclusive AMVOX collection of understated gentlemen's timepieces. Aston Martin's engineers and designers collaborated wîth Jaeger-LeCoultre on the design of the Rapide concept's timekeeper, which takes on the characteristic traits of the AMVOX watches. The 270 degree sweep of numerals, dark grey dial wîth circular brushed surface, hands, numerals and raised sapphire crystal combine to make a beautifully refined object at the heart of the car, a series of sophisticated volumes created by the layers of the dials.
TRADITION 
Aston Martin has always acknowledged the need for elegant, high-speed touring sports cars. The four-door, four-seater saloon displayed at the 1927 Olympia Motor Show began a long tradition of cars that combined elegance, style and power wîth usability. The Olympia car was a closed-body tourer that sported long, flowing lines for the era, tapering to a luggage trunk and mounted on a tubular frame. The car was also low to the ground, purposeful and sporting. Four years later another four-door saloon was exhibited, wîth an aluminium-panelled body by Bertelli, finely engineered, detailed and upholstered throughout, wîth intriguing touches like the roof-mounted opening glass panel above the rear passenger compartment.
Experimentation and innovation continued. The 'Atom' project began in 1939 as a response to materials shortages, packaging design and post-war needs. A four-door saloon, the Atom was built around a steel tube chassis, upon which the bodywork was mounted. The strictly geometrical bodywork drew upon the new science of streamlining, and the car was smaller and lighter than what had gone before, wîth an innovative chassis design that ensured the company retained its image as a technical ground-breaker. In the decades following the war, the David Brown-era cars created the quintessential image of the grand tourer, two-door fourseaters that remain icons of car design. Beneath the supremely elegant skins there were yet more technological firsts, like the strong chassis-and-tube 'Superleggera' construction of the early DB series. In the 1970s and 80s, Aston Martin was uniquely positioned to accommodate almost any customer request, and four-door variants of the V8 and Virage models were built for a select number of discerning customers.
THE JOÚRNEY
Every journey in an Aston Martin is an occasion, proving that the most enjoyable way of getting between two points isn't always a straight line. The Vanquish S, DB9 Coupé, DB9 Volante and Vantage are all designed to sharpen the senses, extracting every grain of texture from the road surface, wîth high levels of driver feedback and involvement. Yet when conditions preclude making progress or spirited driving, an Aston Martin adopts a relaxing, restrained character, wîth the massive reserves of torque and power combining wîth the uniquely cosseting interior to envelop the driver and their passengers in the Aston Martin experience.
The Rapide continues this tradition - a fast, cross-country machine that excels in any driving conditions. The Aston Martin customer doesn't need to have their choice dissected in minute detail: these are cars which appeal primarily to the heart, strong emotional design that is also subtle and discrete. The Rapide is a uniquely personal machine, its interior representing the _ very best of the company's immensely skilled workforce, demonstrating how each Aston Martin is still tailored to a customer's precise requirements. It also represents the high degree of personalisation offered by ultra-modern production facilities and a model line-up underpinned by a flexible architecture - a new model that could broaden the range to cater for every requirement.
Like all Aston Martins, the Rapide is a superlative performer. Powered by the V12 engine from the DB9 but uprated to 480 brake horsepower mated to a ZF Touchtronic gearbox, the car has performance equivalent to the DB9, although the gearing has been adjusted to suit the longer wheelbase and more refined ride. Carbon brakes and callipers, a first for Aston Martin, give the Rapide immense stability and stopping power. 'A sports car is not simply characterised by the number of doors,' says Dr Bez, 'so a four door car can still have the looks and performance of a sports car and the Rapide is certainly true to its name, providing an unrivalled way of taking four adults on a long-distance journey along any type of road.'
The Rapide is serious about the business of driving, a chassis that is equally at home amongst winding back roads, mountain passes or high-speed carriageways. It has the expertise to devour trans-continental distances while leaving the driver feeling fresh and alert, however far or fast. The rich exhaust note is intended to be heard echoing off the sheer rock walls of the Alps, the §teering demands to be taken to the switchbacks of Austria's Grossglockner Pass, while the engine begs to be opened up along a stretch of German Autobahn. Although the power delivery is unrelenting, this is also a car designed for every day use, wîth ample space for a golfing weekend for three in Scotland , a lengthy trans-American journey or even a trip to a Bordeaux vineyard, wîth space to bring back 20 bottles of wine. You can sweep up to a hotel, restaurant or première and the four doors allow your passengers to enter and exit wîth style.
An Aston Martin is about elegance, power and innovation, a bespoke form constructed to high standards that provide the model definition of 21 st 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 wîth 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.
