The South African Lamborghini market is so bouyant that more sales are recorded locally than in Spain. These are significant figures for a marque that has been around for four years and whose sales were only six in 2004, 10 last year and about 15 this year.
“We have seen an increasing change to the demographics of buyers of luxury and super-luxury cars,” says Grant Anderson, marketing manager of Investment Cars, which sells a range of luxury cars including Lamborghini.
He said an increasing number of African people, mostly men, “who are doing exceptionally well at whatever they are doing”, are buying “exotic cars”. He said its client base is mostly people between the ages of their late 20s to 50s. “My youngest Lamborghini buyer was 28.” He would not name names as his clients are “circumspect about their identities”, adding “these are not names you would recognise”.
An entry-level Lamborghini Gallardo costs about R2,3-million and the top of the range Murcielago costs around R4-million.
“The Gallardo is our volume seller,” he said, and this year sales are expected to rise to 15 cars, up from the 10 last year.
Don’t expect to place an order today and get it next week, though: deliveries take six months. “There are more customers than there are cars,” Anderson said. Gauteng commands the biggest sales, a whopping 80% of cars, while about 20% of the market is in Cape Town. An odd car or two is sold in Durban.
Clifford Joffe, marketing director of Aston Martin, which launched in South Africa this year, said the brand had been embraced by the African market. Not too difficult to believe. While I waited in the Aston Martin showroom in Sandton, Johannesburg, three white men came to have a look at cars.
Following hot on their heels were a middle-aged African couple, and a little while later a middle-aged African man also came and cast meaningful glances at the cars on show.
In terms of ownership, Joffe said the African market accounts for “almost 30%” while Candice PotÂgieter of Hamptons Exclusive Cars, a Randburg-based car dealership that sell a wide range of exotic cars, said about 20% of her customers were African. Joffe said these are mostly “business leaders in the highest income bracket. They are essentially the new ‘opinion leaders’ in South Africa with trendsetting influences.”
He said an entry-level Aston Martin, a V8 Vantage, costs about R1,5-million, while a top-end Vanquish costs R3,5-million. The marque’s profile has been accentuated by its association with the James Bond movie franchise, Joffe said.
FutureFin, a division of Wesbank, has come up with a financing product, whereby purchasing a vehicle of R1-million will incur a 25% deposit and monthly instalments of R2 900 over two years. The final payment, however, is about R875 000. This is quite distinct from traditional financing where one pays 10% or no deposit, but pays off the entire prchase price of the vehicle over about five years .
An analyst said this financing product recognises that buyers of exotic vehicles normally keep these cars for two years at most, before they moving on to a newer model. She said this is essentially renting a car and could be popular among BEE players who have cash-flow problems because of the structure and financing of BEE deals.
However, Anderson said the majority of his customers could afford to buy vehicles for cash, but are savvy business people who “appreciate the value of money” and would rather finance their vehicles than use their own money, which they invest elsewhere.
Sohail Dangor, a manager at FutureFin, dismissed the idea that this product was designed for people with cash-flow problems. “It increases your cash flow and makes your cash work well for you in other investments.” He explained that the product was an improvement on long-term contracts that bound buyers for up to five years and that attracted penalties if one cancelled contracts.
Dangor said this product hedges your losses as the vehicle you have bought loses value. Another FutureFin official described it “as an intelligent alternative to use your money without compromising your lifestyle”.