Curbside Classic: 2012 Aston Martin Rapide – An Oasis Of Style

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– Posted on July 28, 2025

Back in the early 2000s, I remember thinking that automotive design was noticeably improving, at least as far as four-door saloons were concerned. It seemed the bottom, which had been reached circa 1990 after over a decade of steep decline, was now fully in the rearview mirror. There were a few faux-pas, of course (Renault Vel Satis, BMW E65, Toyota Verossa, Rolls-Royce Phantom…), but on the whole, things were much more interesting to look at than they had been ten years before.

I don’t know what happened exactly, but car design started to change again by the late 2000s. A new paradigm made up of tortured grilles, massive wheels and bizarrely-angled creases to decorate the flanks took over – we’re still partially stuck in it now, though there is some movement afoot. My point is, the ‘10s were a particularly poor decade for automotive styling, in my opinion. And one of the few saloons of that forgettable era that really looked good was the Aston Martin Rapide.

Part of the problem has to do with the slow disappearance of the saloon, of course – matched by the rise, both literal and figurative, of the SUV. Aston Martin succumbed to that eventually. But before they did, they did manage to offer a refreshingly dynamic four-door in the Lagonda tradition.

And what a tradition it was, too. Aston Martin and Lagonda came to be owned by David Brown in the late ‘40s, thus joining two marques that had hitherto no relation into a common family. In the ‘50s, Astons played the role of the sporty two-door, Lagondas like this 3-Litre saloon (top left) were aimed at a more conservative clientele. By the ‘60s, Lagondas effectively became four-door Astons, though the Rapide of the time (top right) was fatally flawed compared to the DB4. For a good decade, the Lagonda name disappeared. A literal handful of V8-based cars were made in the mid-‘70s (bottom right), but the real revival came with the mad wedge (bottom left) at the tail end of that decade. It lasted till 1990, but died without issue; Astons were back to being two-door only.

By 2005, with their image, bank balance and mojo back in positive territory, Aston were ready to venture back into the four-door market. Based on a lengthened DB9 platform, a very fine four-door prototype was presented in 2006 (above), gathering a lot of positive reactions.

The finalized Rapide, which eschewed the Lagonda name altogether but still harked back to the marque’s history, was unveiled in late 2009, though actual production only really started in May 2010. Initially, this was undertaken by Magna-Steyr in Austria, but things went off the rails pretty quickly.

For one thing, Aston had widely over-estimated the market’s appetite for the Rapide, especially after the 2008 financial crash. With a 470hp 5.9 litre V12 under its bulging bonnet, the car was quite a handful to drive, as well. Aiming at 2000 units per year was a tad ambitious, in a world where a Maserati Quattroporte or a Mercedes-AMG CLS did the same job for much less money. Rapide production was repatriated to England in late 2012 and a year later, the Rapide S (above) was launched. It had a revamped nose and 552hp, presumably because that’s what the market demanded.

Turns out wasn’t. The Rapide S sold poorly, and Aston basically just kept making a trickle of cars while working feverishly behind the scenes on the DBX. There was widespread praise about the Rapide’s looks and pedigree, but questions about build quality (especially the cars made by Magna-Steyr) abounded and the 6-speed automatic transmission was also deemed below par, but Aston had no immediate solution at hand for that issue – it was only replaced in 2015.

Furthermore, the all-round double-wishbone suspension was judged as being on the harsh side in normal mode, and downright uncomfortable in sportier settings. And there was the little matter of the rear seats, which weren’t exactly generous if you were even slightly on the tall (or portly) side. That’s a lot of minus points to tally up, especially when one is being cross-shopped with the Bentley Flying Spur and the Porsche Panamera.

In June 2018, a final upgrade pushed the output up to 580hp and the name was changed to Rapide AMR. There was hope that an electric version would take over, and work did go ahead on a prototype, but the 609hp Rapide E, shown in 2019, ended up as a one-off. It was time for Aston to join the SUV game and for certain car enthusiasts to utter a collective groan.

Production numbers are hard to come by, except for the 2010-2013 Rapide (sans S) like our feature car: 2872 of those were made, mostly in Austria. The final edition AMR, for its part, was limited to 210 examples. Things are fuzzier with the 2014-18 Rapide S. It is rumoured that sales were around 500 units per year on average, but no official data are available. By comparison, Porsche were making around 7000 Panameras per annum in the mid-2010s.

Be that as it may, there is no contest as to the Rapide’s trump card, i.e. its drop-dead-gorgeosity. If a ten-year-old Bentley, Maserati or Porsche saloon wafts by, you don’t take a blind bit of notice. But catch a glimpse of that sleek shape out of the corner of your eye, and you turn into a Tex Avery cartoon wolf. Not many cars of the 2010s can do that.