Aston

The Aston Martin Rapide concept

INTRODUCTION

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 with 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 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."

ARCHITECTURE

Underpinning 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 extruded aluminium construction of the VH architecture can be modified in both length and width, providing a myriad of packaging options, and the chemically-bonded structure (using glues derived from aircraft manufacture) is mated with bodywork that mixes aluminium and composite materials. The architecture's flexibility is further demonstrated by its use in the DBR9 racing car, where it is combined with carbon-fibre composite body panels to produce a modern race car of rare beauty.

Aston Martin's traditional hand-finishing, craft skills and attention to detail operate side by side on the ultra-modern production line at Gaydon in Warwickshire. The VH architecture is at the heart of this manufacturing operation, its modular structure providing such inherent rigidity that it has given the company's designers and engineers the same levels of freedom as their predecessors, 50 years before. In today's marketplace, even low volume manufacturers like Aston Martin are governed by strict legislation and the need to balance power, weight distribution, handling and safety. Utilising the VH architecture as the foundation for the new Rapide concept, Aston Martin has illustrated how their current range might be expanded, a four-door coupé that complements the formidable DB9 2+2, DB9 Volante and the compact and muscular Vantage.

DESIGN ETHOS: EXTERIOR

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.

Reichman describes the 'beautiful harmony' of the line that runs through the Rapide's bodywork, giving the car the appearance of motion even while stationary, an athlete in flight, rather than crouched and coiled upon the starting blocks. "It's not a wedge, it's graceful and flowing," he explains, "we decided to let the lines flow right through the body to the tail, which ends very beautifully. In silhouette, the Rapide shares the same sinuous line as its two-door siblings, although when compared with the poised stance of the Vantage with its sprinter-like forward thrust, the Rapide is a long distance runner." Reichman believes that proportion is fundamental to how a car is perceived. "There are forms that appear at ease and forms that appear tense and uncomfortable," he says, "we wanted to make everything on the Rapide work in harmony." Achieving this required the intuitive skills of Aston Martin's modelling team, who work with both raw clay models and advanced computer modelling. "We put character and feeling into the surface," says Reichman. "Our designers and modellers work with a sculptural language here at Aston Martin - the play of light on the surface are incredibly important to us." Full-scale models are viewed in daylight and dusk conditions, for example, to ensure that the dramatic surface forms remain an integral element of each and every Aston Martin. Reichman believes that technology like the VH architecture allows him "to keep the form language and soul of the product."

The Rapide represents the pinnacle of Aston Martin's design ethos, a formal language developed through the carefully balanced combination of elegance and aggression. In silhouette, three-quarters view and from both the front and rear, the Rapide is instantly recognisable as an Aston Martin, regardless of whether it is wearing the famous winged badge (still faithfully rendered in pewter and enamel on every model). The soft curves of the flank kick up into muscular haunches above the rear wheel arches, with the roofline staying low, true to the distinctive Aston Martin silhouette. The Rapide also features the metal side strakes, another signature feature, while the doors feature Aston Martin's unique 'swan wing' design, opening upwards at a 12-degree angle away from the kerb to provide greater access. The rear doors cut unexpectedly deep into the flank below the C-pillar, increasing the width of the opening to improve access. At 5m long, the Rapide is 30cm longer than a DB9, and only 140kg heavier. "Aston Martin should always be about the proportions," Reichman says. "Although the Rapide is slightly taller than the DB9, the proportion of the section is the same, allowing the flowing lines to encase a spacious passenger compartment."

DESIGN ETHOS: INTERIOR

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.

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.

The generous rear luggage compartment is accessed via a hatchback, a practical feature shared with 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 with 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 with 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 with 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.