The Nurburgring 24 hour race to be held on the 15th and the 16th of May this year, will see the return of the Aston Martin to the battle grounds. The Rapide will be participating in the standard version of the engine along with a few minor changes that are important for fulfilling the criteria of racing on the tracks. The changes have been brought about by a group of engineers located in the Gaydon headquarters of Aston Martin, in Warwickshire, England.
The Rapide is a car that can seat 4 persons comfortably but the basic criterion is that it is a racing car model and hence will have to clear tests like any other sporting car model. With a great track record on the race track, they have proven the fact that with a little bit of modification they have enjoyed a great run winning the SP8 class races in back to back years in 2008 and 2009. Certainly the car is on a roll.
Aston Martin officials have stated that the racing version of the car is just a variant of the production version and would not be much of a deviation from the latter. The only change that will be observed is the inclusion of race safety modifications. Many interior trims and other design based features which were there on the production version have been removed to decrease the overall weight of the car to gather more pace.
Ulrich Bez, the head honcho of Aston Martin has stated that this is an ideal test for a car like Rapide to take itself to a different level and compete with the best of cars in the same category and prove its merit. He further stated that this will test the engineering mechanisms of the car and is the toughest hurdle for a car under strict public vigil.
According to an update on Autocar, the guys there have managed to put together a short three-minute video of the Rapide Nurburgring Edition of the car. The car has been christened ’Katie’ by Aston Martin showing how close the car is to their heart. James Corstorphone has given a brief review of the Rapide racing model comparing the Katie Road Racer with the standardized public production version of the model. Check out the video of the review and you would not be disappointed.
Source: topspeed
