That’s what I thought when it caught my eye.
It’s not a Mondeo, I realised after 0.45 seconds. That someone sat in it may explain why I didn’t get any closer.
Aston Martin must choke when they see the Astony Mondeos that still ply the roads in moderate numbers. Aston Martin owners may feel there is no comparison – only an idiot of the first order would mistake a house-priced car for a nice-kitchen priced car. They delude themselves.
Aston planned to make the Rapide at Steyr in Graz, Austria but sales never met expectations. Ford knows why.
Nice A2.
Yes – you don’t see so many. It was Audi’s Multipla, back when design involved innovation.
Aston Martin haven’t been able to make the Rapide seem distinguished other than by length and width. I’d be interested to know what research is done to make cars look visibly more expensive at the detail level. In 1986 an Escort conveyed the sense of every penny saved; a BMW 316i glowed with superiority. Today there are bigger differences within the classes than between them. This Aston probably has a fancier interior; the outside, less so. It looks very GL not GLX.
Can I suggest that the colour might be a negative factor here. I really like the Rapide and find it an elegant albeit compromised (by the fact that it is clearly a stretched DB9) design. In darker, metallic paints, it can be described as handsome and desirable – as it should for the price. One could argue that it has been superceded by the Taraf, although that comes at a huge premium.
I would also rather the A2, which is a lovely thing.
Oh, and later versions went for a ‘single frame’ grille, so they look less like a Ford … and more like an Audi (sic).