Caterham Heads To China
Will the world's largest car market take to the iconic Seven?
The Caterham Seven - that icon of lightweight British performance motoring - is to be sold in China for the first time after Caterham Cars signed an exclusive deal with new importer, Courtenay Trading International (CTI).
The plan is to appoint six retailers in key provinces of China over the next year, and Caterham and CTI are hoping to shift between 30 and 50 Sevens in the first year of the operation.
All Caterham's current Euro5-compliant cars will be sold - which means the Roadsport 120, Superlight 120, Roadsport 175, Superlight R300 and CSR 175 are all heading to the People's Republic - with the first Sevens scheduled to arrive in China in January 2012.
Although Caterham has had a presence in the Far East for a while, notably in Japan, this will be the first time the Seven has been sold in China and represents Caterham's continuing expansion into new growth markets.
"Our entry into the Chinese market is another tangible sign of how Caterham is striving to become a truly global brand," reckons Caterham Cars' international business manager, David Ridley.
Global brand, eh? That's quite an ambition for a company that produces fewer than 1000 cars per year from a small factory in Dartford...good on 'em, we say...
The title is slightly wrong, Caterham heads BACK to china...one has already been..
http://www.ontheroadinchina.com/nokiadiscoverchina...
Good luck to them.
However, don't Porsche sell vastly more Cayennes/Panameras than 911s in China?
I think the Chinese mindset is some way from being tuned in to the Caterham Seven. The Japanese culture is significantly more 'in tune' to the Caterham concept as was alluded to in the article.
However, if you can't sell 30-50 cars per annum to a population of over 1 billion something will have gone wrong somewhere!!
Some time after that when Caterham sales fall off because of the cheaper Chinese competition the new Chinese company will make an offer to buy all of Caterham and move all their production to China maintaining a small design group in the UK until the Chinese have learnt everything they need to know.
Some time after that when Caterham sales fall off because of the cheaper Chinese competition the new Chinese company will make an offer to buy all of Caterham and move all their production to China maintaining a small design group in the UK until the Chinese have learnt everything they need to know.
If an enterprising manufacturer in China can knock-up a 'knock-off' using the same/better materials and engine for half the price then all power to them.
Besides, there'll always be a huge demand for genuine, European/British products in China.
Some time after that when Caterham sales fall off because of the cheaper Chinese competition the new Chinese company will make an offer to buy all of Caterham and move all their production to China maintaining a small design group in the UK until the Chinese have learnt everything they need to know.
The key is whether production is simple enough. If it is then doing so would slash labour costs.
You would have to argue that if a bloke in a shed can do it them so can a basic Chinaman.
If labour costs are a significant element of Production cost then it should be done.
Have the most basic models made there and shipped to point of sale and leave the specialist British work force to build the higher margin more complicated cars which have better terminal profit margins.
If they can build thousands of base models in China and sell them domestically and across the FE and beyond this would be simply brilliant.
With the revenues such an accomplishment would deliver just imagine what other products they could deliver.
But the skill in this is going to be the marketing - which is Fernandes' skill. If he can persuade the Chinese that they need to drop $100,000 on a Caterham (which is about how much they'll cost due to the import duties), he'll be a lot further along the road to buying Lotus.
But the skill in this is going to be the marketing - which is Fernandes' skill. If he can persuade the Chinese that they need to drop $100,000 on a Caterham (which is about how much they'll cost due to the import duties), he'll be a lot further along the road to buying Lotus.
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