Aston Martin Rapide Buyer's Guide
The Rapide is Aston Martin's four-door on the VH platform: a 5.9-litre V12 grand tourer with rear seats that mostly work, built 2010–2020 and never sold in the numbers Gaydon hoped. We have no hammer prices yet, but three active listings carry estimates from £20,000 up to £50,000, which puts a V12 Aston saloon at the price of a mid-range German executive car.
Know your versions
One generation, three flavours. The original Rapide (2010–2012, 470bhp) used the Touchtronic six-speed automatic mounted at the rear; early cars were actually assembled at Magna Steyr in Austria before production moved to Gaydon. The Rapide S (2013–2020) lifted the V12 to 552bhp, gained a taller grille, and from 2015 the far better eight-speed ZF gearbox, which is the one to have. The Rapide E of 2019–2020 was the stillborn electric version; only a token run was built and it is a curiosity rather than a market. Our current listings bracket the range: a 2011 Rapide with 54,891 miles estimated at £26,000 to £32,000, another 2010 car at £30,000 to £50,000, and a 2014 Rapide S at £20,000 to £30,000.
What to pay
No sold results to report, so the honest answer is the estimate band on our three live cars: £20,000 to £50,000 depending on year, mileage and history. Note the inversion in our own data: the 2014 Rapide S carries a lower estimate range than the 2010 car, which says condition and provenance are pricing these, not model year. Treat anything at the £20,000 to £30,000 end as needing the full history file read twice.
What goes wrong
The AM11 V12 is fundamentally durable but supporting hardware is not: coil packs and their connectors fail (a full set is an engine-out-adjacent labour job on a V12), and the twin fuel pumps and fuel level senders in the tank are a known Rapide-specific weakness that strands cars. The rear-mounted Touchtronic transaxle is a conventional ZF automatic rather than the Vantage's automated manual, which is good news, but fluid changes are essential and a shunting shift pattern means money. Check the battery and electrical systems carefully; these cars sit, and a weak battery produces a festival of warning lights that sends buyers away from otherwise sound cars. Suspension arms and bushes wear at normal rates on a car weighing nearly two tonnes, brakes are large and priced accordingly, and any service history gap matters more here than on almost anything else at the money, because independent Aston specialists are the only economic route to keeping one.
Our view
The Rapide is the cheapest way into a V12 Aston Martin in our current listings, and that is both the appeal and the warning. Bodywork and interiors age well, the engine is a proper hand-built V12 with racing pedigree in the family, and the four doors make it usable in a way a DBS is not. But at estimates of £20,000 to £30,000 the purchase price is the smallest number in the ownership equation, and a neglected one can consume its own value in recommissioning. Buy a Rapide S with the eight-speed box and an unbroken specialist history, or buy nothing.