If The Times Are Bad, Someone Forgot To Tell Rolls-Royce And Ferrari

Edward Niedermeyer
by Edward Niedermeyer

Derek Kreindler’s provocative defense of the Maserati Kubang sparked off an interesting discussion among TTAC’s Best and Brightest yesterday, about the the macroeconomic outlook for luxury brands. Sure, the American economy is struggling to stay out of a double-dip recession, credit is no longer as available as it was in the pre-Lehman days, and some argue that worse is still to come… but for the moment, the high end of the luxury market couldn’t be doing better. Rolls-Royce CEO Torsten Mueller-Oetvoes tells Reuters [via AN [sub]] that his brand will set a new sales record this year, and that the outlook for 2012 is good, saying

I have not seen any reluctance to consider buying a Rolls-Royce. I do not feel that sentiment is deteriorating in the luxury market. We are dealing with people who are unusually wealthy and never really have to ask themselves, can I still afford this or not?

And it’s one thing to just talk, but Rolls is also putting its money where its mouth is, initiating a $16m expansion to its Goodwood plant. And it’s not the only luxury brand that seems to be confused about this “recession” that the peasants keep going on about…

Fiat-Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne joins the “what recession?” chorus, telling Bloomberg

If you go to the Ferrari stand, there aren’t any customers worried about the recession. The last Ferrari customers I saw at the show weren’t crying.

In fact, Ferrari is capping production at 7,000 annual units in order to maintain exclusivity. If a Ferrari customer were going to cry, it would only be because they were late to the waiting list and missed the latest must-have Italian stallion. Luckily Maserati is picking up the slack, as Bloomberg explains

Even without the Kubang SUV, Maserati aims to boost deliveries by almost eightfold to 45,000 cars in 2014 as it increases dealers by 150 percent worldwide.

According to IHS Global Insight, sales of the top-tier European luxury brands, Ferrari, Maserati, Lamborghini, Bentley, Rolls-Royce and Aston-Martin, will grow double digits this year and the next. Even with the growing possibility of a deep recession in Europe, a possible Euro-zone breakup and the persistent threat of a sovereign debt crisis, the good times are rolling for the global upper-crust. Says Credit Suisse analyst Erich Hauser:

The rich have gotten richer and the number of millionaires in emerging countries is really growing so the demographic trend is very positive. Things would have to get very nasty before they face a problem.

In the meantime, the rest of us can take our minds off the grim reality facing the less-than-super-wealthy by tuning in to the automotive mainstream media’s ongoing obsession with the most unobtainable of millionaire-mobiles. Because voyeurism is free (or 83 cents per issue if you subscribe now!) and the wealthy are just doing their part to keep us entertained. Welcome to the new economy…


Edward Niedermeyer
Edward Niedermeyer

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  • Sector 5 Sector 5 on Sep 15, 2011

    A fair amount of Roller sales are to hotels not individuals? The truly wealthy is usually dead stingy and wouldn't be caught dead in some Britanic-imperial badge engineered bit-of-tat from Bavaria.

  • Shaker Shaker on Sep 16, 2011

    The wealthy have given those of us near the bottom of the pyramid something to aspire to... we should be properly grateful.

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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