*December 6/09 Update: USD MSRP of Rapide to be $199,950*
Known most of all for its supreme design competence, Aston Martin is releasing its first 4-door in more than two decades next year in sublime style. The Good Car Guy has been known to complain about Aston’s style-by-dimensions take, but it goes without saying that Aston Martin’s style credentials are sky high.
The Rapide is a gorgeous 4-door (though technically a 5-door hatchback) with the sort of presence reserved for people who really know how to make an entrance. Marek Reichman, Aston Martin’s design director, compares the Rapide to “a race horse standing still” with its “power and elegance” and muscular “rear haunches”. He talks about the car’s purity being “right from every angle”. Car&Driver calls the Rapide the “world’s most beautiful hatchback”. Edmunds’ Inside Line believes the production Rapide remains “remarkably true” to what they called a “snazzy concept”. Autoblog calls the Rapide a “British beauty”. And of course here at GoodCarBadCar.net it’s been said that “the Aston Martin Rapide is one of the best-looking 4-doors in the history of 4-doors”. Britain’s CAR magazine says the Rapide is a “low-set four-door with a great stance, a beautiful silhouette and enough athletic details to get the CAR office salivating”.
In other words, the 2010 Aston Martin Rapide is strong on aesthetics. But what about mathematics? That’s to be discovered in the Numbers below.
2,000 – estimated total production of the Rapide at the plant in Graz, Austria
470 – horsepower generated by the Rapide’s 5.9L V12
442 – lb-ft of torque produced by the V12, an engine shared with all other current production Aston Martins except for the V8 Vantage
13.97 – diameter, measured in inches, of the Aston Martin Rapide’s front brake discs
15:1 – steering rack ratio in the new Rapide, a couple notches quicker than that of the DB9
10.6 – cubic feet of storage capacity in the rear hatch of the new Rapide, less than the 12 cubic feet available in the back of a smart fortwo
26.5 – total cubic feet of luggage capacity available with the Rapide’s rear seats folded
645 – total Aston Martin Lagondas sold between 1976 and 1989, the last time Aston pushed a 4-door in the Marketplace
4,299 – weight of the Aston Martin Rapide in pounds
1,000 – total wattage provided by the Bang & Olufsen sound system which inludes motorized tweeters rising out of the dash
250,000 – approximate price, in U.S. dollars, of the Aston Martin Rapide when it goes on sale in the States next year
150,000 – approximate price, in British pounds sterling, of the Rapide when it goes on sale in…. Great Britain; the same as the average out-the-door price of the old Aston Martin Lagonda of the 80s
360 – total LEDs housed in each rear light
125 – Aston Martin dealers around the world in which the Rapide should compete against the future Lamborghini Estoque, Bentley Continental Flying Spur, and maybe even the Rolls-Royce Ghost
niiiiice.