Aston Martin has revealed the Rapide S - not a sportier version of its four-door sports car, but a replacement for the current car. Significant changes under the revised skin result in enhanced performance, efficiency and refinement. It passes pedestrian protection legislation too.
Exterior
The images of the Rapide S released so far appear to have the new Carbon Pack fitted, which raises the aggressiveness of the design a tad. Someone has forgotten to fit a front number plate too, which only serves to emphasise the biggest visual change - a large front grille. Like the new Vanquish, the grille is part of Aston Martin's innovative new pedestrian protection design, which, in conjunction with a lower mounting of the engine, allows an even lower bonnet line.
If you can draw your eyes away from the nose for a moment you may notice that the rear end has come in for some attention too, resulting in an aerodynamic flip, as seen on the recently revamped Aston DB9.
Interior
Reading between the lines of Aston Martin's press release the interior of the Rapide hasn't changed a lot (we'd argue it didn't need to), though there are many more customisation options for buyers, including a shiny piano black pack and sumptuous 'duotone' red and black leather. As before there are two individual seats in the rear and their backrests fold down at the touch of a button to increase luggage capacity.
Mechanicals
Few would have said the Rapide needed more power, but that hasn't stopped Aston Martin. There's still a 6.0-litre V12 engine under that long bonnet, but power output is up 17 per cent from 477- to 558hp. This is produced higher up the rev range too at 6,750rpm. Maximum torque increases from 600- to 620Nm, and though this is available at a relatively high 5,000rpm there's more torque from idle than before. The result is a 0-100km/h time of 4.9 seconds (down from 5.2 seconds) and a 305km/h top speed. Despite all this emissions are down, with an official CO2 figure of 332g/km - it was 355g/km before.
Anything else?
As mentioned earlier, that mighty engine is 19mm lower in the chassis, to the great benefit of a lowered centre of gravity. Aston's engineers took the opportunity to revise the dynamic stability control system, along with the adaptive damping, which has Normal, Sport and Track settings.
The starting price for the new Aston Martin Rapide S has yet to be announced, though such is the level of personalisation available from the 'Q by Aston Martin' service that it really is just a starting point...