Luxury Cars Losing Luster?

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Back in the 1990s, super-luxury brands traded like gold futures and carmakers obliged the market by planning models priced above $100,000. One would have thought that every Microsoft (MSFT) secretary who got in on the company's initial public offering and every founder of a getrich.com startup was going to want to drive a custom-built rod.











What else could explain the fevered interest in brands like Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Lamborghini, Bugatti, and Maybach? Though sales of those brands, with the exception of Bentley, have disappointed, new offerings showcased at this week's New York International Auto Show indicate that automakers still see gold in exclusive, expensive, limited quantity automobiles.











DaimlerChrysler's (DCX) Mercedes-Benz hasn't scored much buzz with its $350,000 to $450,000 Maybach sedans, which it offers in an extended wheel-base version for owners who do most of their riding in the backseat. The car is oddly styled for many, and there's a growing consensus that most buyers of high-end cars want designs that are more personal--coupes and roadsters--but don't want them so finicky that they spend as much time being retuned by mechanics as they do on the road.











Bentley's Back So this week, Mercedes is showing the CLK63 AMG Black Series, which is a street-legal version of Mercedes' Formula One race car. It features 500 horsepower from a 6.2-liter V8 engine, which will help the car along to 186 miles per hour. Buyers who don't have access to the autobahn and want to air it out in the U.S. on some of the closed tracks that are available can remove the backseat to hold the car's weight down. If this is what gets your blood pumping, get your order in. Mercedes will only produce 500 to 700, with a price of $140,000 to $150,000 in the U.S.--if you can get one.











Bentley, which appeared to be dead under the ownership of Rolls-Royce a decade ago, has, to the surprise of many, come back from the grave under ownership of Volkswagen. Sales of the British brand are up 29% in the first quarter, and it's on track to sell some 4,500 cars in the U.S. alone this year. The unlikely success has been created largely on the back of the stylish and extremely well-turned-out Continental GT, which sells for $170,000.











At this week's show, Bentley is introducing the Bentley Brooklands, a much bulkier coupe than the Continental derived from the Arnage sedan. The car's twin-turbo V8 generates 530 horsepower. It goes on sale later this year, but dealers are taking orders now, as well as the customization specs most buyers demand. Bentley only plans to produce about 500 of these cars, which will price out from $300,000 and up, depending on how crazy the buyer gets with customizing.











Friends of Sophia Maserati is showing the GranTurismo, a coupe version of the Italian automaker's Quattroporte sedan [see BusinessWeek.com, 2/23/07, "New Maserati GranTurismo Breaks Cover"). Maserati is another marque that's showing signs of resurgence, posting a 5.4% sales increase for the first quarter thanks to improved distribution and marketing under Maserati North America chief Jim Selwa.











The GranTurismo may not be as practical as the four-door Quattro, but who buys a Maserati for left-brain reasons? The GT produces 405 horsepower from a V8, going from 0 to 60 in 5.1 seconds and reaching a top speed of 177 mph. To be priced between $100,000 and $125,000 when it goes on sale in a few months, the GT could turn out to be a cool alternative to the Bentley Continental GT for Sophia Loren fans.











Audi, another of Volkswagen's premium brands, has a lot of momentum behind it, as quality and design have improved and an increasing number of buyers discover the brand as an alternative to the more ubiquitous BMW and Mercedes-Benzes. Audi sales overall are up 18% in the first quarter. But that gain is driven mostly by the 5,400 Q7 crossovers that it didn't have to sell last year. Sales of the Audi A6 and A8 are way down.











Heavy Metal In an effort to boost interest, Audi in the next few weeks will begin delivering the R8 coupe to dealers [see BusinessWeek.com, 9/29/06, "Audi Unleashes Its Ferrari Killer"). Already drawing positive reviews from respectable auto-enthusiast magazines, the R8 is priced starting at $107,000. It has a 4.2-liter V8 engine making 420 horsepower and a 0 to 100 km/h [0 to 62 mph] time of about 4.2 seconds is possible, Audi says, with a top speed of about 301 km/h [187 mph]. As VW owns both Audi and Lamborghini, the R8's layout and chassis are based on that of the Lamborghini Gallardo, and the two vehicles share transmissions.











Luxury makers are certainly looking to stir some buzz at the high end of their lineup. Whether it's a wobbly stock market or changing tastes, there's a lot of surplus sheet metal at the high end, despite record bonuses at Wall Street firms such as Goldman Sachs (GS). BMW's 7 Series sales are down 30%. Mercedes S Class sales are off 13% a year after the new one debuted, and SLK sales are off 30%. Audi A8 sales are off 33%. Porsche sales are down across the board.











One of the few bright spots is that first-quarter sales at Fiat (FIA)-owned Ferrari sales are up 17%, to 400 cars, lending credence to the idea that there's still a robust market for exclusivity. Also, Aston Martin, which Ford (F) recently sold to a private equity group for almost $900 million, has done well. Sales have been climbing, driven by the mounting popularity of the $170,000 DB, as well as the $110,000 V8 Vantage, which reviewers have said is quite worthy of the James Bond Aston Martin badge, despite its relatively low price for this marque.











"Ultra luxury is a very difficult market to figure, and it often ebbs and flows more than other parts of the market," says Victor Doolan, former head of Volvo Cars and BMW North America. "One thing is a constant, though, and that's that the success of those cars is very dependent on arresting design and an aura of exclusivity."











Click here to see the most expensive luxury cars of 2007.