Aston Martin Rapide will Aston's rivals follow suit?

The so called four door coupe, is clearly one of the in trends in the motoring world. In truth most of these are hum drum saloons fitted with a lower roof to give a sexier look that makes the buyers executive car look less like a Munich mini cab (think Mercedes SLS and VW Passat CC).

The new Aston Martin Rapide takes the opposite approach by stretching the Aston Martin DB9 into a longer four door version. I'm personally not sure the styling is totally successful as from some angles (particularly the front three quarter and profile views) the car looks a little gawky to me. I would also have preferred the styling to not follow the identikit shape of the rest of the Aston range, attractive as it is, it is getting rather too familiar.

The Rapide does however seem a good move for Aston Martin as unlike the other models in the Aston range it has found a niche of it's own, being priced far to the north of its most obvious rival the Porsche Panamera, but still undercutting the four seat (but two door) Ferrari 612 Scaglietti. The Bentley Continental in both coupe and Flying Spur Saloons seem to lack the Je ne Sais Quoi (read too many have been brought by premiership footballers).

I can see the Rapide finding favour with Aston owners whose family have out grown the token rear seats of the DB9, and also in the emerging markets such as China four door cars often carry more status than two door coupes (Porsche's decision to launch the Panamera in Shanghai was probably not conicidental).

The big question has to be will the likes of Lamborghini and Ferrari follow suite and launch a four door coupe? Lamborghini showed the Estoque concept at the Paris Motorshow in 2008. It seemed to go down well but I was unimpressed although this may in part have been due to the cartoonish 23" wheels on the car.  Other than the wheels the car looked fairly production ready although with the impending assimilation of Porsche into the Volkwagen empire this may cause a conflict with the Panamera .

Ferrari is less clear cut, whereas Porsche and Aston have prior form for making four door cars, Ferrari have never put a four door car into production (the closest being the Pinin concept of the late seventies which used a front mounted flat 12 from the Boxer).  Although Internet forums have been awash with rumours of a Ferrari super SUV, I'm fairly certain (hopeful) that this will never happen other than maybe some custom orders through the Ferrari personalisation scheme. I could see the next 612 perhaps using small suicide doors like the Mazda RX8 but I can't seem them going the whole hog and producing a full four door.

I can however see the next generation Maserati Quattroporte (still the most beautiful four door) gaining a more coupe like profile when it is finally replaced. That would certainly an interesting car.