It’s perhaps anticlimactic when a production car stays true to an eye-catching concept--except when it’s an Aston Martin. And the Rapide revealed today is a dead ringer for the stunning show car from 2006.

Aston Martin released the first official picture of the Rapide and confirmed that it will be powered by a 6.0-liter V12 rated at 470 hp and about 443 lb-ft of torque. It will be revealed in the flesh in September, likely at the Frankfurt motor show. It goes on sale in early 2010 as the company’s first true production sedan.

The picture shows the long, low-slung car with Aston’s trademark side strake and front end. It also has muscular shoulders in the rear and a sleek roofline. The doors swing up and open in the back, and are termed “swan wing,” which the company says makes for ease of entry and exit.

The Rapide is based on Aston’s vertical/horizontal extruded aluminum architecture, and is fitted with a Touchtronic gearbox. Aston is calling it a sports grand tourer, and there are four full-size seats plus room for plenty of other goods.

The company’s design director, Marek Reichman dubbed the Rapide the “long-distance runner” of the Aston fleet, compared with the “sprinter” V8 Vantage and the “muscularity” of the DBS.

We’ve had pretty good looks at the Rapide before this. Spy shooters nabbed the sedan during testing at the Nürburgring in Germany, where it’s undergone extreme-climate testing and performance dynamics. It was first seen in concept guise at the 2006 Detroit auto show.

Pushing this car toward production was one of the first moves by new owners Dave Richards and a group of Kuwaiti investors when they bought Aston Martin from Ford in 2007.

The Rapide will be built by Magna Steyr in Austria. It will compete with the Porsche Panamera and the Mercedes-Benz CLS.