Rascasse

Distinguished Exterior Design

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The star qualities of this car are obvious at a glance. The striking two-tone paintwork, a hallmark of the Carlsson Aigner® range, confirms that the Carlsson Aigner® CK55 RS Rascasse is no ordinary luxury car.

Several coats of perfectly smooth, hand-rubbed Bordeaux Rouge metallic paint have been applied to just below the window line. Above this, rich black paint takes over with a thin, black coachline softening the transition between two shades. The visual marraige of these two contrasting yet complementary colours imparts a regal air to the Rascasse.

Adding to that presence is the Carlsson Aigner body styling kit consisting of wider wheel arches visually linked by side skirts. The front wings carry white illuminated Aigner logos. The door rubbing strips are colour-coded in black, which visually lengthens the car.

The nose of the Rascasse has been made more imposing with a new bonnet carrying two larger power domes. Under this, a new larger front grill and sub-grilles feature chromed wire mesh.

Additional driving and fog lights are set into the bumpers, stainless steel grids and LED daytime running lights are integrated into lower edge of the deeper front apron extension. All these elements give the Rascasse a much stronger face, reinforcing its already commanding presence.

The rear valence incorporates cut-outs for the four chromed exit pipes of the freer-flowing sports exhaust system. This is optimised for both lower backpressure and a throaty V8 soundtrack.

Apart from enhancing the look of the car, the front spoiler, side skirts and rear valence extensions are designed to help reduce aerodynamic drag and lift. All these parts are made from PU-RIM, the flexible material used by OE manufactures like Mercedes-Benz for their production bumpers.

PU is much more expensive than glass-fibre in small runs, but is lighter and has good low speed bump resilience. It also requires a much larger tooling investment, demonstrating Carlsson’s commitment to OE quality levels.

To help transmit this extra power and torque to the road, Carlsson use their three-piece 3/11 UL forged alloy wheels with highly polished outer rims in 11J x 23-inch size with 305/30ZR23 tyres.

The forging process creates a very light but exceptionally strong alloy wheel that helps to counter the increased unsprung weight of the larger diameter wheels and tyres.

The Carlsson electronic lowering kit, C-Tronic® SUSPENSION AIR, drops the ride height of the Airmatic suspension by 30mm. In combination with the wider wheels and tyres, this delivers superior handling and roadholding characteristics.