Autocar reports the TTAC-predicted cratering of new Ferrari sales. “Global sales at the Italian supercar maker have dived from almost 600 a month to just 92 cars in November and Ferrari is now negotiating with Italy’s trade unions to trim unwanted road-car production staff.” And it appears (ya think?) inventories are building-up. “Ferrari will also shut its Maranello production plant for an unprecedented 20 days over Christmas, which sources insist will be to prevent vehicle stockpiles reaching unmanageable levels.” Uh-oh? No! “Ferrari has denied that the company has been adversely affected by the credit crunch. The company said that the extended break was merely Ferrari being generous to its employees.” It gets worse…
“Insiders have confirmed that sales of the V12-powered Ferrari 612 Scaglietti and Ferrari 599 Fiorano have effectively stalled and Ferrari has moved both models into a special customisation program to mask the seriousness of the problem.”
That’s a scodella di non buono. It gets worserer. “Sales of its smaller, V8-powered Ferrari F430 – the core of the company’s volume and profit, and due to be replaced late in 2009 – plummeted after the official unveiling of Ferrari’s new California in October.”
What a difference 15 months makes… “As recently as the Paris motor show last October, Ferrari chairman Luca di Montezemolo had been speaking of a sales target of 10,000 cars for 2010 which, even with the new Ferrari California on stream early next year, now seems wildly optimistic.”
Brother, you need to change the title. 92/600 = 15%. The sales drop is 85% not 650%.
If I’m not mistaken, sales cannot drop by more than 100%…unless they’re taking the cars back…
I think you mean 85%
What happened to building one less car than the public wants?
Blame coffee?
But doesn’t Ferrari have a two-year wait? How can a company with a two-year waiting list have stockpiles? Unless, of course, the wait is artificial…
Now, I’ve never bought one, so maybe I’m a little fuzzy on the details, but do they ask for the cash up front? A deposit?
650%. A joke. Or not.
Text amended.
Does this mean some Ferrari owners will start slumming in a Quattroporte or Mercedes?
Blame that RI public education. I do when I jack things up.
0% financing!?
I knew it to be a humor attempt. I ♥ RF
I knew it to be a humor attempt. Ouch.
What happened to making one less Ferrari than the demand? I thought that was the genius of Ferrari that no other car company understood?
So, mighty Ferrari “don’t get it” either. Hey, why don’t they try to build cars that “people want to buy”?
The international luxury market is being hit hard by the credit crunch – seems a lot of those playthings were dependent on generous lenders.
Repossessions add to the story here – with lots of vehicles coming back to dealers and leasing companies, making it even harder to get rid of the new ones at a decent price.
Looks like the way Ferrari and its dealers have been treating customers for the past decade is about to come back and bite ’em in the ass.
Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch.
There are many, many stories about the legendary waiting list. Just search the internets.
One of the dead tree mags did a story on this not too long ago. Basically, you pay a deposit, but they NEVER promise you a car. In fact they specifically tell you that they can sell your car out from under you, drop you from the list at their discretion, move you up/down the list at their will, and may never sell you a car if they don’t feel like it.
A 20 day layoff is nothing if sales have cratered 85%.
Next thing you know, Montezemolo will be shopping at Men’s Wearhouse.
There’s a two year waiting list, so I’m guessing there are a bunch of people who’d left their deposits with Ferrari, and had asked to pull their names off the list.
The wait is only artificial in that they have limited production capacity.
Now WHY those people pulled their names from the list is a different story.
It’s probably a combination of the recession, where fortunes were genuinely decreased.
Or maybe it’s because a Ferrari buyer would be seen as a
M-M-M-M-M-M-MASSIVE cock if buying a car like this in the face of the largest group of layoffs since the 70’s.
@zarba
I’ve read those. Some famous athlete or actor wants a car, he gets one at the drop of a hat.
I’d be interesting to see if they have a Do Not Sell list, like a Soup Nazi ‘banned for life’ list that denies you and your family (and your children’s children) from Ferrari ownership for all eternity.
Y’kno, I glanced at the headline and thought it read: Ferrari PRICES drop 85%. Or more.
Wow…now I can go out and by a 599GTB!!!
And then I clicked….and reality hit like semi.
Oh well.
I’m also guessing that the ‘600 a month’ figure is a number of average sales per month, not accounting for seasonal differences.
I could think of a few reasons why November may not be not be the best month to sell Ferrari either way, financial crisis or not.
Also; stockpiling? Don’t they build cars on demand at Ferrari? Maybe they could build a couple of red F430s because someone will always buy them but even that doesn’t really makes sense since it is unnecessary.
How many cars have they built in November, that would be more interesting to know…
In any case, they’d still better make a great looking F430 replacement because if it’s another blandmobile (like the Cali and more or less the Scaglietti and 599) they deserve the trouble they’ll be getting themselves into.
Or maybe it’s because a Ferrari buyer would be seen as a
M-M-M-M-M-M-MASSIVE cock if buying a car like this in the face of the largest group of layoffs since the 70’s.
Good point. If I’d be (in a position to be) buying a Ferrari right now I’d buy a mildly used 360 Modena. It’s the economical choice, you’d save about EUR100.000 or more compared to an F430 and still get 90% of the thrills a F430 would give you while looking slightly better. You could even go for the Challenge Stradale, which is even better than the Scud and available for about EUR150.000 now.
And, to people looking at you funny you could front like you bought it in 2000 because you cashed in on the dotcom boom before everything went bust…
oh wait…
@zarba
I’ve read those. Some famous athlete or actor wants a car, he gets one at the drop of a hat.
I’d be interesting to see if they have a Do Not Sell list, like a Soup Nazi ‘banned for life’ list that denies you and your family (and your children’s children) from Ferrari ownership for all eternity.
When they offer an intro model at sub $40k, let me know :)
‘Bout time they got a reality check. I’m getting sick of the whole Ferrari ethos/mythos. Nice to know it’s finally catching up to them.
CoffeeJones:
I doubt it. If so, the only name on it was Ferrucio Lamborghini…
Money talks, and Ferrari is all about the money. If you have the cubic dollars, they’ll be happy to serve you.
Please sign me up for the Ferrari “Employee pricing for everyone” program…
Didn’t someone observe after the rash of supercars culminating with the McLaren F1 that these kind of cars always preceded a large financial downturn?
Perhaps free-flowing money is like Robin Williams’ definition of cocaine: “Cocaine is nature’s way of telling you that you have more money than you need.”
Perhaps free-flowing money is like Robin Williams’ definition of cocaine: “Cocaine is nature’s way of telling you that you have more money than you need.”
Except that blow will get you quantitatively and qualitatively more babes than an F-car. And sadly, it’s cheaper…
Is there really a waiting list? I assume you speak for the United States.
I live in Mexico and there’s a Ferrari/Maserati dealer 15 minutes from my house, with a bunch of Ferraris just waiting to be driven off the floor.
My friend’s dad actually bought one about 3 months ago. He owns a steel company or something. AFAIK he didn’t have to wait 2 years or anything. You just go in, pay and leave with your car.
Even if you had to wait, there are private dealerships that sell nothing but exotics and you can go in and buy one with no waiting list.
And then there’s the used market.
Plenty of options so you don’t have to wait =P
What this story also shows is that even Ferrari owners are practical people, and not generally in the thrall of handling dynamics at the expense of other criteria:
“Sales of its smaller, V8-powered Ferrari F430 … plummeted after the official unveiling of Ferrari’s new California in October.”
So, it really is the badge that drives Ferrari sales, not the nature of the beast. Otherwise, a bigger, bulkier, Merc-SL-with-rear-seats wouldn’t be stealing the thunder of the F430 (although I’m sure the California is still a superb-handling performance car).
It also means that Ferrari miscalculated both its own buyers and everyone else’s. The California, as I understand it, was meant as a conquest model, luring buyers of Conti GTs, AMG SLs, and DB9 Volantes. Now, perhaps it has done that (but not very well if sales are down 85%!), but it’s also substantially poached Ferrari’s bread-and-butter. The interesting question becomes: if the economy at the upper end doesn’t improve, does Ferrari simply kill off the middie-8 model altogether, and stick with a front-engined coupe?
Finally, this spells real trouble for a number of marques. All along in the last few years, we’ve heard that the upper end of the market would be immune to any trouble amongst the proletariat, but this (along with the continued slide of Maybach sales to just 9 in November) proves that the upper end is vulnerable. CoffeeJones is probably right that image and perspective play as big a role as vanishing hedge funds, but the end result is still the same. We could see the disappearance of Pagani, Koenigsegg, SSC, and Spyker.
There are also the increased number of cars turning up in the used market that are probably a factor.
I get the feeling that most Ferrari owners are of the “successful lawyer or doctor” variety that own one Ferrari.
There aren’t too many James Glickenhauses with vast collections.
So, many of them would want ‘A’ Ferrari, the exact model not being as important as the badge on the front.
So, those people might be all over the used market.
@HighlyEvolved
I live in Mexico and there’s a Ferrari/Maserati dealer 15 minutes from my house, with a bunch of Ferraris just waiting to be driven off the floor.
Same here in the US. I’ve been to the Ferrari dealership on the Las Vegas strip (Wynn Hotel), and they have more 430 and 360’s than anything. But the staff assured me that every one of their cars was previously owned and that there are simply no new cars sitting around on lots.
Somebody was having his Enzo maintained, and it was up on a lift when I visited.
There was also an FXX (replica, or otherwise) in the corner. The sign read, Ferrari FXX – Not For Sale