Joshua Mah / Edge Columnist
According to “Sales of Bentleys and Lamborghinis are booming because rich people are bored” by Peter Valdes-Dapena, a lot of car manufacturers and factories have closed down due to the coronavirus pandemic but supercar companies such as Lamborghini and Bentley are doing surprisingly well in their orders. Supercar companies are not just surviving nor just good, it was better; but thriving.
“I’ve been in this business 40 years and I’ve never seen it like this,” said Brian Miller, president of Manhattan Motors, a high-end dealership that sells Bentleys, Lamborghinis and Bugattis, among other ultra-luxury brands.
In the US, car sales decreased 10% last year but sales rebounded in the fourth quarter of the year. However, the rise was similar to the one from 2019, so it’s it was not really a huge improvement.
“But sales of cars costing more than $80,000 were almost double in the fourth quarter what they had been the year before.” said Tyson Jominy, vice president for data analytics at J.D. Power. “And for cars costing more than $100,000, sales in the US were up 63% that quarter. There’s a fairly fantastic wealth effect going on.” According to Jominy, rich people didn’t have the ability to go on trips, so they decided to buy expensive cars instead. Jominy says that the pandemic played a huge role in the skyrocketing supercar market
“We were surprised,” said Stephan Winkelmann, CEO of Lamborghini, “An ideal model mix and the growing customization of our products pushed profitability to the highest levels.” What Winkelmann said in this statement he said it is an indication that the Lamborghini Urus and Sian were successful releases.
Other than Lamborghini and other supercar brands, Bentley is the car company that had the ‘best year’. Even though the factory had to shut down, It was reopened seven weeks later and Bentley is still working and they continued on as normal as if the shut down never happened. Bentley was so successful that they sold 11,206 cars and SUVs in 2020, which is a record year for Bentley. In 2020, Lamborghini made the most profits ever in the entire world. In fact, new orders for Lamborghinis are full for the next nine months in 2021.
Another luxury car brand, Rolls-Royce, which is owned by BMW, stopped making the old Ghost sedan in 2020 and focused on making their newer version. Apparently, orders for the new Ghost remake of the Rolls-Royce is full for the whole of 2021.
“Amazingly enough in a pandemic, we live in the ‘Golden-Age‘”, said Sebastian Cenizo, who wrote “Luxury Car Sales Skyrocket During Global Pandemic.” According to researchers in Technavio, the US luxury car market would grow about 6.7 million units within the next 3 years. The reason why luxury car sales have shot through the roof is because the rich are very bored during COVID, so they find other ways to spend their money, like ordering new limited edition cars. Bugatti, Bentley and other luxury car manufacturers are more than happy to fulfill these orders.
The increase in car sales matters to supercar companies because they had worked incredibly hard keeping up and staying active producing cars amid these challenging COVID times. These luxury supercar companies have conquered enormous obstacles which have helped boost their confidence to sell more of their cars to the public.
However, this unnecessary spending on supercars seems like a waste of money, especially since so many people have lost their jobs or are unable to work because of the lockdowns. In these uncertain times, people should consider saving their money instead of buying things they do not need. No one knows if harder times are ahead.
Links:
Sales of Bentleys and Lamborghinis are booming because rich people are bored – https://www.ctvnews.ca/autos/sales-of-bentleys-and-lamborghinis-are-booming-because-rich-people-are-bored-1.5374864
Luxury Car Sales Skyrocket During Global Pandemic – https://carbuzz.com/news/during-a-global-pandemic-luxury-car-sales-skyrocket
Luxury Car Sales Skyrocket During Global Pandemic – https://lifestyle.livemint.com/fashion/trends/why-people-are-shopping-for-luxury-cars-during-the-pandemic-111616589083942.html
Luxury Car And Supercar Demand Increases In Unexpected Market – https://carbuzz.com/news/luxury-car-and-supercar-demand-increases-in-unexpected-market
Lamborghini had its most profitable year ever during the coronavirus pandemic – https://europe.autonews.com/automakers/lamborghini-had-its-most-profitable-year-ever-during-coronavirus-pandemic