Carmageddon Is Behind Us. If You Believe in Ghosts

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

The worldwide auto industry is officially on the mend. Carmageddon is behind us. The future is bright and shiny. How do I know this? If Rolls Royce can have higher annual sales than in any of the 30 years before, life must be good again. And there still are 2 months to go, with some possible Rollers under some possible Christmas trees.

Last year, BMW-owned Rolls sold some 1,000 of their pricey cars. In October this year, they already had moved more than 2,000. Who’s responsible? A ghost, reports Automobilwoche [sub]. The $350,000 and up Ghost is selling like hotcakes and makes inroads into fresh target groups. 80 percent of the Ghost buyers never had a Rolls before, says Rolls Chief Torsten Müller-Ötvös. He’s more than happy to change that.

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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  • Ingvar Ingvar on Nov 09, 2010

    Where does the quote of "more than in 30 years" come from? If I'm not mistaken, Pre-VW, Rolls-Royce had a sale of about 2000 cars per year consistently for the period from the Silver Shadow and forwards. It was only post-VW, with the arrival of the Phantom, and the loss of cheaper offerings, that sales declined. So, if I'm not mistaken, sales should just be up on par now?

    • Silvy_nonsense Silvy_nonsense on Nov 09, 2010

      "Where does the quote of “more than in 30 years” come from?" The sales figures Bertel is quoting are taken from the lead sentence of the Automobilwoche article liked to above. I had to use Google Translate, but I got from the article that RR is quoted as reporting that it has already sold more cars this year than have been sold in any other -single- year since the 1970's. I also initially got the impression that the article was talking about this year vs. the previous 30 years in total. Per the Automobilewoche article, BMW is projecting 2500 RR sales this year, and sold 1000 last year, and even without more data in front of me, I'm absolutely certain that RR sold more than 1500 cars in total between the 1970's and 2009. I imagine even Bristol sold more than 1500 cars between 1970 and 2009.

  • Getacargetacheck Getacargetacheck on Nov 09, 2010

    Rolls-Royce is selling more cars now than in 1980? Does that 1980 figure include Bentleys? In any case I wouldn't be surprised. At least in the US, the gap between the richest and the poorest is at 1920s levels. The last 30 years has been all about sacrificing the middle class for the very richest. Can you believe that we're actually having a debate in the US about how downtrodden the very richest are should they have to pay an extra 3% in tax for earnings over $250,000? Surreal.

  • ClutchCarGo ClutchCarGo on Nov 09, 2010

    And yet asking those buyers to pay a couple percent more in income tax is class warfare?

    • Stuki Stuki on Nov 09, 2010

      Asking all those with wealth and income between these guys and the absolutely destitute to do so; to pay for bailing out the RR buyers, based on childish Mickey Mouse banter passed off as "economic" theories by the RR intenders' bought and paid for shills; certainly is. Besides, voter/bureaucrat/politician A having even the remotest idea what citizen B "makes" is utterly beyond the pale in any society with pretensions of being a civilized one.

  • Stuki Stuki on Nov 09, 2010

    Quite to the contrary, the parasitic drag on the economy from having to support the purchasing power of a large chunk of the intended (in the US and Britain, at least) market for this thing, is pretty much guaranteed to keep the economy in the doldrums on pretty much a permanent basis.

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