First official photo of production Aston Martin Rapide revealed

It would seem that many of the high-end automakers around the world are demonstrating a propensity for four-door high-performance sports cars these days. For one, you have the Porsche Panamera, a very fast, yet highly practical, very German four-door Grand Tourer. Then there's the Estoque from Lamborghini - a super aggressive four-door supercar, albeit still only in concept form. But the one that takes the beauty crown home is undoubtedly Aston Martin's Rapide, which is rapidly approaching its production date later this year.

After a string of renderings and spy shots making their way around the web over the last few months, Aston Martin has finally released a single image of what the production version of this four-door sports cars will look like. The car has maintained much of its original look that was seen in its original renderings and shares pretty much of its design with the current Aston flagship, the DBS coupe. It will also be powered by a version of the same 6.0-litre V12 engine found on the DBS. The Rapide is all set to go into production in late 2009 at a Magna Steyr factory in Graz, Austria, and we can probably expect James Bond to order one if he decides to settle down, get married and have kids.