The History, The Engine, The
Racecars, The Future
Aston Martin
Fashion is temporary, class is permanent.
That’s why, 100 years on, this minnow brand is still breaking hearts in a world
of giants
Six years ago, Ford sold Aston Martin to a
private consortium led by Prodrive’s David Richards, and you could hear the
sound of air being sucked through teeth. Cynics gave the new company a couple
of years at best, and it’s true, the road hasn’t been Audi test-track smooth.
But, since independence, Aston has triumphed in motorsport, built a series of
supercars and today celebrates both a new funding lifeline and its centenary, a
milestone many great car companies have failed, and will fail, to reach.
Aston
has triumphed in motorsport, built a series of supercars and today celebrates
both a new funding lifeline and its centenary, a milestone many great car
companies have failed, and will fail, to reach.
Whether you’d spend your last hypothetical
drip of petrol maxing a Lamborghini Aventador along the Autobahn or cruising
the Cote d’Azur in a Rolls ragtop, it’s impossible not to have a soft spot for
Aston Martin. Somehow Aston manages to rise above the sometimes distasteful
associations that afflict most supercar brands. Consistently beautiful to
listen to and look at, and never simply outlandish for the sake of drawing
attention to itself, an Aston inspires affection, never envy, enjoying a
perverse classless appeal ironic really given that right from the start, it was
always an inordinately expensive car that working class folk couldn’t hope to
get close to.
Today though, you can buy an Aston for as
little as you’d pay for a new executive sedan. Not a new Aston, granted, but
one that the company’s conservative process of evolution (and lack of money to
do anything much quicker) ensures looks much like today’s new models.
One final note – we make no bones about
being light on the first half century of Aston’s history in this celebration.
The company made some great cars in the 1930s but really, how many Quarrymen
records have you got in your Beatles collection?
Limousine
Tag along as we get a world exclusive
preview of Aston’s new four-door sports car, the Rapide S
Aston
Martin enhances Rapide with new S model
The spy photographers hiding around Aston’s
Gaydon HQ probably wouldn’t bat an eyelid, but there are two telltale clues
that this isn’t any old Aston Rapide. Firstly, the extra pipes that protrude
from the exhaust tips are there to hook up to emissions testing equipment, a
giveaway that this is a test hack. Secondly, there’s a sneaky extra bit of
plastic zip-tied to the grille. It tricks your eye into thinking this car still
has a two-piece mouth, where actually it’s an all-new, one-piece gaping gob. And
that’s all there is to suggest this is a trick prototype that the world’s not
really supposed to know about. But this is the new Aston Rapide S, and its subtle
bodywork – the new ducktail style boot lid has been omitted for extra
sneakiness hides the fact that its 6.0-litre V12 has been tweaked to a hugely
significant degree: from 350kW and 600Nm to 410kW and 620Nm.
It
tricks your eye into thinking this car still has a two-piece mouth, where
actually it’s an all-new, one-piece gaping gob
The S won’t sit above the existing Rapide,
it’ll replace it entirely, arriving midway through 2013 and should cost similar
money to the current car. Aston will be hoping it can keep those with the cash
out of the Porsche Panamera Turbo S, Ferrari FF and Maserati Quattroporte 3.8
twin-turbo.
When the Rapide landed in early 2010, the
marketing pictures showed families and dogs frolicking around it. If you’ve
ever sat in the back of a Rapide, you’ll know that it wants to be used as a
saloon car in the same way. That Robert Mugabe wants to relinquish power to the
opposition: a six-footer sitting behind another six-footer will be caught in a
pincer movement, his knees squashed up against the seatbacks and his headroom
pinched by the swooping roofline. It’s also not amazingly easy to get into and
out of the Rapide’s back doors with grace, and the boot is only slightly larger
than a Vantage’s and somewhat smaller than the new Vanquish’s.
The Rapide S, then, is a chance for Aston
to shift the Rapide’s positioning: think of it not as a saloon car substitute
that can also do sporty, but more of a sports car that can also offer some of
the practicality of a saloon car.
The
S won’t sit above the existing Rapide, it’ll replace it entirely, arriving
midway through 2013 and should cost similar money to the current car.
Today we’re about to get a world exclusive
ride in the Rapide S as the test team put it through the final phases of
development, running durability testing for US federal requirements. Chief
platform engineer Paul Barritt is at the wheel, an Aston veteran of 15 years
who cut his teeth on the DB7, has worked on Vantage since day one and who
inherited the Rapide S project a little over a year ago. Bravely, he’ll also
put his hand up to the Toyota iQ-based Cygnet.
