Tag: sales

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Lamborghini News

Runout of the bulls

Lamborghini OC - Stealer of the year!

Lamborghini OC in the United States was the country’s largest Lambo dealer, and counted A-list celebs among its clientele, until it closed down suddenly last November. The cause was thought to be the financial crisis, but new court documents seem to uncover the real story. Okay, so it may not be news to anyone that some car “stealers” have shady reputations. But these guys took the “stealer” label just a bit too seriously.

The cowboys at Lamborghini OC are alleged to have been knocking out deals that were too good to be true. Indeed, the deals were so good they sold over 50 cars in just 8 days. The proceeds came to around US$12M. That’s some runout sale!

There was just one problem, the cars which had been sold by the dealer were originally financed by Volkswagen Credit, and, you guessed it, they’ve not seen one cent of that $12,000,000. Understandably, they’re a bit upset with the current situation and are suing the owners of the dealership, the Keuylian family.

Turns out the Keuylians appear quite adept at not paying bills, with the East-West Bank wondering where their US$3M in loan repayments have gone. Also in their repertoire is exchanging cash for cars, whereby they take the car, but forget to pay the cash. Nice work if you can get it, I suppose. But it all catches up with you in the end, even if you are driving a Lamborghini.

The Volkswagen Credit case is scheduled for hearing on 22 January.

Source: OCregister

Categories
News Rolls-Royce

High Rollers raise stakes

Rolls-Royce - Spirit of Ecstacy

Rolls-Royce is bucking the trend of financial disaster in this carpocalypse now era. Yesterday, the Goodwood based company proudly announced a 20 per cent growth in sales during 2008. Last year 1212 Rollers found new homes, up from 1010 in 2007. That marks their fifth consecutive year of increasing sales.

“This is a tremendous result and particularly gratifying considering the challenging economic environment manufacturers faced in the second half of 2008,” said Tom Purves, Chief Executive Officer, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. “Once again much of this success lies with the highly skilled and dedicated workforce that we have at Goodwood”.

Given the gravity of the financial meltdown in the United States some may be surprised to learn that almost 40 per cent of Rolls-Royce deliveries headed Stateside. Northern Europe and the Middle East also saw big spikes on 2007 figures, up 95% and 48% respectively. Even Australia did its part in boosting BMW’s balance sheet in the RR column, with sales also growing here.

It will come as no surprise that the most successful Rolls-Royce dealer worldwide is in Abu Dhabi. While Beijing, Beverly Hills, Dubai and London rounded out the top five.

Can sales continue to grow for a sixth consecutive year? I can’t imagine the chaps at Goodwood are banking on that. However, preparations are underway for the introduction of a brand new model series, currently named RR4, due later this year (design sketch images below).

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Categories
News Volkswagen

Have Australia’s Golf prospects been sunk?

Will the MkVI Golf make it to Australia?Reports have emerged suggesting that the upcoming Volkswagen Golf MkVI will NOT be sold in Australia. You can read the original report, in German, HERE, or alternatively see autoblog and germancarblog for reports in English. To highlight the gravity of these suggestions, it has been said that the United States and Brazil will also miss out on the MkVI Golf.

AUSmotive.com contacted Volkswagen Australia earlier today, but at this stage no comment has been made to confirm or deny the Australian future of the MkVI. However, the suggestion of the next generation Golf not being sold in Australia is one that warrants close attention. The reports suggest it is the profitability of the MkVI that concerns Volkswagen chief Martin Winterkorn. On a global scale it would be hard to argue that Australia is a vital market for Volkswagen. But in a local context the current MkV Golf is sinking plenty of long range putts for Volkswagen Australia.

In 2007 the Golf was the highest selling car in Australia for a German manufacturer. VFACTS figures show 10,982 Golfs were sold in 2007. Well above the next best—the BMW 3 Series with 8716. In fact, even if you add 1 Series sales to the 3, the combined sales tally for the two BMW models—10,497—they still fail to overtake the Golf.

Peugeot’s entire model range couldn’t match Golf sales either, with a total of 8807 sales last year. A similar tale is told for stablemate Audi, with 7225 sales across the range in 2007. Subaru’s Impreza was another unable to match it with the Golf last year, although they were about par, with 10,853 Impreza sales.

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