Aston Martin Rapide - James Bond's family car.

We wanted to make the most beautiful four-door sports car in the world - that may be a one-line design brief that the top honchos at Porsche, Lamborghini, Ferrari and probably a couple other sports car manufacturers gave themselves a few years back. But guess who's come down to beating everyone else in the beauty pageant - yes, it's Aston Martin. When the first concepts for the Rapide were shown off to the world in 2006, we knew the British manufacturer was on to something.

Porsche tried with the Panamera and Lamborghini complimented with the Estoque, but while the German looked like the expecting mother of a 911, the Italians managed to dish out a meaner raging bull. Where the Rapide will outclass both of those is with pure elegance. The fact that the Aston Martin design philosophy over the years hugely compliments a larger four-door body quite well just made things even easier, or so it may seem.

One look at the Rapide and you wouldn't mistake it for anything but an Aston Martin. With design cues that hark back to their extremely successful sports coupes from the recent past, the Rapide is all what the design brief said it should be. All the way from the front end through the flowing profile and the typical rear, the Rapide is one-hundred-percent Aston Martin. Executed with no aesthetic compromises the Rapide uses 'san-wing' doors that rise upwards and outwards to gain access to the rear seats. But what makes this so true to their design tradition is the way the rear shoulders blend into the kicked up tail to create that legendary Aston stance. And then there's that iconic side strake that starts as intakes behind the front wheel arches, flows through the front door and blends into the bodywork as it passes the leading shutline of the rear door - a detail to die for!

But the Rapide isn't all about divine visual grace - it is a sports car after all and it is built to perform. It all starts with Aston Martin's V/H (Vertical/Horizontal) extruded aluminium architecture that not only gives the Rapide proportions and poise, but also keeps the weight down and structural rigidity high. Pitting brawn in this beauty will be a version of Aston's 6.0 litre V12 powerplant producing no less than 470 horsepower and a massive 600 Nm of torque. The engine - hand built at their Cologne factory will be mated to the rear wheels through a highly responsive Touchtronic gearbox which should make the Rapide the obvious choice when it comes down to performance, refinement and luxury in its class.

Aston Martin will put life into the Rapide at a new production facility in Graz, Austria where manufacture will be managed by Magna Steyr and co-ordinated by a fully integrated team from the UK. At the moment though, the Rapide is being put through its paces at the company's new Nurburgring Test Centre. After a series of performance and endurance testing, Aston Martin will be giving the final sign-off before the car finally debuts in September this year. That's good news for enthusiasts - bad news for the competition. Will the car appear in the next Bond movie? Maybe, if he decides to settle down and start a family!