Road test: 2015 Aston Martin Rapide S

Aston’s flagship four-door has fixed its problems.

The 2015 Aston Martin Rapide S tops 300kph and hits 100kph in 4.4 seconds, while boasting a luxurious interior. Aston Martin

It’s fair to say that Aston Martin’s “most beautiful four-door car in the world” – a self-­descriptor the manufacturer seems unable to resist using any time the model is spoken of – has had a rather troubled few years since its launch in 2010. Annual production was supposed to be 2,000 cars per year and, since Aston’s British factory couldn’t cope with the extra capacity required, a dedicated facility was designed and built at Magna Steyr in Austria, where the Mercedes G-Class, the Mini Countryman and others are manufactured. It must have cost squillions, yet just two years later, when that magical 2,000 figure proved to be nothing more than a fantasy, Aston packed up shop in Austria and relocated the ­Rapide’s production to England.

Typical Aston Martin: right car, wrong time, outsold by a physically repulsive competitor in the form of Porsche’s Panamera. It must have been baffling to Aston’s top brass, but the Rapide has always had two things going against it: it’s expensive and those rear seats are nowhere near as practical as Aston Martin first touted. Wisely, then, the Rapide S is marketed as a four-door sports car and, with adjusted expectations, potential buyers seem keener than ever to explore its virtues, of which there have always been a great many.

When the S came along in spring 2013, it was more than a midlife refresh. It was comprehensively better in every respect than the original Rapide, apart perhaps from its more ungainly nose section, which has little of the drop-dead gorgeousness of its more-elegant forebear. The S is more engaging, more exciting and just as well-built as ­anything the Austrians could muster – and now, for 2015, it’s even better, thanks to a raft of minor improvements and one great big one in the form of a new, eight-speed automatic transmission.

The Rapide S is a car with delightful detail galore. The bonnet louvres, for instance, are individually cast from high-­density zinc; the carbon-fibre addenda dotted around the extremities are formed by hand. The new diamond-quilted stitched leather headlining is also handcrafted and looks stunning, lifting cabin ambience to previously unseen levels, and the whole car exudes ­craftsmanship, but without the fragility that used to automatically be associated with the term. This, ladies and gentlemen, is where your money goes – if you want ordinary, then head for someone else’s showroom.

All this would be mere frippery, however, if the oily bits don’t pass muster, but this latest Rapide S exhibits a well-­founded confidence in Aston Martin’s abilities and its belief in a model most thought was dead in the water. The 6.0L, V12 engine is stronger than ever, pushing out a healthy 560hp (18 per cent more than the first Rapide), but it’s no lazy lump with low-down torque. On the contrary, peak twist and power come in at 5,500rpm and 6,650rpm respectively – giving it a delicious, sporting edge missing from some of its competitors. The engine sits 19 millimetres lower in the chassis than before, too, endowing it with even more confident handling characteristics.

It needs it, too, because this is a serious performer. The Rapide S is now part of a still fairly exclusive club of production cars that can top 200mph – an arbitrary figure here, perhaps, but in the United States and some parts of Europe, still the ultimate leveller – and flat out it can hit 327kph (203mph), reaching 100kph from rest in 4.4 seconds. These are numbers anyone could be proud of and solidify the “four-door sports car” moniker foisted upon its curvaceous shoulders.

Unlike most sports cars, however, the Rapide S weighs just shy of two tonnes, although it hides that bulk extremely well on the move. It also has that eight-speed slush-box, but it does nothing to diminish its sporting credentials. Rather, it’s the making of the car. Aston Martin calls it “Touchtronic III”; the rest of us call it the Rapide S’s saviour, because it’s lightning quick, taking just 130 milliseconds to shift between ratios, and it’s imperceptibly smooth, making for effortless and truly grand touring. If you want to take it by the scruff of the neck and show it who’s boss, you can assume control via the wheel-mounted paddle shifters. Throw a limited-slip differential into the mix and the Rapide S is as sporting as any Aston this side of a V12 Vantage S – it’s just that there’s room for four normally limbed adults inside.

As a driver’s car, it excels, with urgent power delivery, a finely tuned adaptive-suspension system, beautifully weighted steering and an engine soundtrack that, frankly, would be difficult to better. It really does handle like a sports car should, yet it’s no bone-shaking weekend thrill machine. It’s a car for covering huge distances in, in style and comfort, but with a larger repertoire than most others.

The only thing that threatens to spoil the party is its now hopelessly dated and outmoded driver interface. Once that’s sorted (and I hear it will be very soon), the Rapide S really will be a force to be reckoned with.

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