🏎️ Max Finds James Bond's Family Hauler

presented with…

Good MORNING dear readers. It is Monday, and you are reading MaxFindsCars: the only newsletter in history to buy its readers cheap beer on the holidays.

TheSkimm would never dare such a thing.

Since its the beginning of the week, I thought maybe we should find an interesting commuter car today. Something comfortable, smooth, and reasonably affordable at a predicted price of less than $5000 per engine cylinder. A Ford Fiesta ST isn’t even that affordable!

HERE IT IS: A 2011 Aston Martin Rapide

What Makes The Rapide So Cool?

• It’s the car James Bond would’ve driven if he had MORE FRIENDS

• It’s the Luxury Sports Sedan that NO ONE HAS

• It’s Chock Full of V12 GLORY

Today’s Edition is brought to you by Trailblazing Love Date Night Boxes

But First, the Highlights…

The Rapide is one of Aston Martin’s only entries into the luxury sedan market, and they did it in the most Aston way possible: the classy way. This is the type of car that requires a tailored suit for entry, even for your toddlers in the back.

And this one in particular has been well loved and well used, sitting at 78,000 miles. While that means wear and tear, it also means this car has been maintained as a driver’s car rather than sitting in some collector’s garage, dry rotting away. I think for that reason we don’t see it drop too far below the value of some recent lower mileage examples.

• 🌏️ Driven around the world: 3.1x

• 🎼 Song to Get the Vibes Right: Goldfinger

• 🏇 Can beat 470 horses in a fight

• 💰️ Predicted Price: $54,450

• 📆 Auction Ends: July 21st, 2023

It’s the car James Bond would’ve driven if he had MORE FRIENDS

Notice anything a little… different about this Aston? Something… unique and pictured above, perhaps?

That’s right, dear readers, its an Aston with FOUR doors!

I'm sure the astonishment is palpable. You can practically feel the universe shifting on its axis, can't you? Now, I know what you're thinking: "Max, aren't sports cars supposed to have just two doors? Aren't four doors for mom's grocery getter?" Well, buckle up buttercup, because Aston Martin decided to toss that rulebook out the window and give us a sports car with room for the whole gang.

Ever wanted to see what a Bond film would be like if ol’ James had finally decided to father a couple of the many kids he’s almost certainly abandoned in his 60 years of galivanting across the world having fling after fling?

I think that would be a nice change of pace, and Aston obviously thinks so too.

An Aston with four doors isn’t a historically common thing. Before the Rapide, there was only one other: the Lagonda (a very weird car we will cover another time). So, when putting the Rapide together, chief designer Marek Reichman had a completely clean slate. No other Aston sedans to align design queues with.

So what did he do? He taped a picture of a thoroughbred horse to the wall and stretched out the existing DB9 like it was toffee.

As simple as it sounds…

It worked like a charm. This is a BEAUTIFUL car. Especially when you compare it to the competing Porsche Panamera of the same era:

And the rear seats weren’t just a gimmick!

They were grippy, sporty looking bucket seats. Not a simple bench seat.

The middle seat was scrapped in favor of this center console that held controls for heater AND COOLED seats, leather-lined cupholders, reading lights, and…

It had TWO TV’s, controlled by a remote stored in the center compartment (circled above), that also happened to store headphones that looked straight out of the clearance section of Radio Shack.

And the trunk space was nothing to gawk at either, this thing was seriously practical - it could hold all your road trip luggage, no problemo:

It actually kinda looks like they got half way to designing the trunk to double as a rear facing bench seat, which would just be AWESOME.

It’s the Luxury Sports Sedan that NO ONE HAS

So, it has nearly 500 horsepower, its luxurious, and it has room for the whole family.

But more importantly (if you’re a weirdo like me who’s a sucker for cars most folks rarely see), NO ONE has these.

This isn’t your neighbor Chuck the Lawyer’s S-Class.

This is an Aston Martin, and it has doors that open like THIS:

They’re called swan doors, AND from certain perspectives they kind of remind me of those mind-bending lithographs designed to mess with your eyes

Anyways, the whole point of bringing up the swan doors is that…

This thing is damn unique.

Only about 20,000 Rapides were ever sold over its 10 year production run,

By contrast, Mercedes sold 25,000 S-Classes in the first 2 years the Rapide existed.

But… you had to pay for that exclusivity. The Rapide often sold for more than $200k new. That’s up there with the top of the line Mercedes S65 AMG.

And… sure, maybe you’ll suffer a bit more than the normy Mercedes driver when it comes to things like maintenance. But! It won’t be as painful as you think!

Why?

For one, I have anecdotal (Doug DeMuro’s Aston Martin Vantage Youtube series) evidence that Aston’s are more reliable than is commonly assumed. Hell, this one was built only a few years removed from the Ford-owned Aston Martin days, where parts were shared left and right amongst the Ford brands. So… maybe parts will be reasonably cheap too?

But most importantly, you’ll never really care when you have to pay to get your Rapide fixed because your reward will be…

The Glorious V12 Under the Hood

Just listen to this beauty

Bet Chuck’s S-Class doesn’t have THAT.

SO, do you want a, formerly two hundred thousand dollar, V12 family hauler?

Do you want one that (probably) comes with a tailored suit and a disdain for the American colonies?

Buy this car, and perhaps be the first person ever to get one well above 100,000 miles.

And remember…

MaxFindsCars.com is not, technically, free! By subscribing, dear reader, you have agreed to tell your friends about it.

In fact, I believe the contract specifically stated you had to each subscribe 100 of your closest friends, colleagues, enemies, exes, priests, pets, & sugar mommas. I’ll have to check the fine print to be sure, but you all may as well get started spreading the word in the meantime.

That's a wrap for today. New Editions come out every Monday & Friday! While you wait, go out and drive! And if you want more, be sure to follow Max’s Twitter (@maxjzin)

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