Tuesday 4th October 2005

Cut-price Lambo on the way

Supercar market to get even more crowded

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RWD Gallardo on the way

The cut-price supercar bracket is starting to get very crowded, with two more cars due to bid for your attention.

Before you reach for your wallet, be aware that cut-price means those cars whose price centres around £100,000, plus or minus £20,000 -- but it's all-important for a number of significant carmakers, including Aston Martin, Bentley, Porsche and Ferrari.

First is the Lamborghini Gallardo. Rumours are that a RWD-only version will be powered by the Audi RS4 engine, whose 4.2-litre V8 delivers 414bhp. The car should sell for under the £100k figure, according to Autocar.

The magazine also reports that Rolls-Royce is bringing bling to the segment, with a £125,000 model to compete with the Bentley Continental GT. It's been suggested that there could be a range of bodyshells available, including a saloon, coupé and an estate, though the last on the list will arrive later. The company has got as far as a generating a number of styling proposals, Autocar reported.

RR's new boss Ian Robertson, once head of BMW South Africa, said he didn't rule out an SUV either.

The impetus behind all this, according to Robertson, is that this segment was once 5,000 cars a year but now sells some 20,000, and the upward trend continues.

[Twincam16]

No offence to bankers, and I know that for the companies to survive they must make more commercial cars, but I have this nasty feeling this '£100k plus or minus £20k' segment runs the risk of diluting brands and removing the veneer of prestige from them.

I mean, take the Aston Martin AMV8 Vantage. Built specifically to compete with the Porsche 911, as it sounds like this RWD 4.2 Gallardo will too.

Fair enough, but where's the discretion to choosing a Porsche these days? I'm sure all the Porsche owner's on this site use them as intended and can drive them according to their abilities too, but you can't deny that Porsche has become as much a status symbol as a great car, bought by people who do no more than the daily commute in it. As a result, a Porsche 911 is a relatively common car and as such you don't point one out to everyone when you see one. This is a crying shame.

But its an even greater shame when Aston Martin, Lamborghini et al follow them down the same route. They're great cars (though I'm a little underwhelmed by the road tests of the AMV8V compared with the 911). Will this mean marques once coveted by the masses will grace every mildly-successful banker's drive? In my local area I know of one Lamborghini and at least two dozen Porsches. In the back of my mind, I'm glad I don't see two dozen Lamborghinis - there is greater discretion and dedication in choosing to buy a Lamborghini.

And am I the only one who reckons Aston Martin will release an 'entry' model with the basic 4.2-litre Jaguar V8 from the XK8? Think about it - AMV8 Vantage? Vantage points to a faster variant. It certainly wouldn't surprise me if they had a basic 'AMV8' up their sleeves.

Not that any of these cars would be bad, but the true exclusivity of the marques wouldn't be there any more.

[vario-rob]

Twincam, I agree pretty much with most of what your saying as there has been a significant diluting of some famous and coveted brands in recent years which doesn’t always sit that comfortably with true enthusiasts such as the good folks of PH

This though is only have the story because although what you are saying makes sense to me we are also living in reasonably buoyant economic times (whatever we might think to the contrary) and there are simply more people with more money to spend on expensive cars.

Now clearly that is O level economics but on the back of such low interest rates you really can get yourself into a fairly hefty bit of kit with damn cheep money. I was talking at length with the local Ferrari garage only last week and was quoted 7.4% APR against a used 550 with a sizeable deposit.

Translate those sort of rates into a brand new baby Lambo and you can easily see why an empire the size of VAG is keen to wring ever last ounce out of its Lamborghini investment and bring the buyer the sub £100k Lambo.

The world would perhaps be a better place if there was still the odd Italian supercar manufacturer who was privately owned and who still turned out rare beasts in small numbers. Once there were several with Lambo, Maserati, De Tomaso etc but beyond Pagani I really start to struggle.

[Twincam16]

vario-rob said:

we are also living in reasonably buoyant economic times (whatever we might think to the contrary) and there are simply more people with more money to spend on expensive cars. Now clearly that is O level economics but on the back of such low interest rates you really can get yourself into a fairly hefty bit of kit with damn cheep money.

All this is true, but since the '70s (probably the last time all these cars were truly 'exclusive'), things have changed in terms of marketing.

Drawing heavily on a Martin Buckley article I was flicking through the other day, there was a time when people who weren't enthusiasts but were after a 'nice expensive car' had plenty to choose from.

At the bottom of the pile you had things like Ford Granada Ghia Coupes and Opel Commodore GS/Es. Further up, there were big Jaguars and Mercedes-Benz mixing it with massive BMW and Triumph luxobarges.

Those cars had image, presence, style and cache in the '70s, and people with 'money to spend on expensive cars' bought stuff like that because it not only reflected their wallets, but their interest in driving.

You can blame the '80s for the dilution of Porsche, but I would have thought they'd have wanted it to go back to how it was in the '70s. Wealthy sports enthusiasts who really could drive bought supercars, whilst rich people who couldn't bought luxobarges.

And then what happens? Porsche release the Cayenne, a luxobarge of epic proportions. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. Make it an Audi, don't compromise Porsche!

Most of the big names - Porsche, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Aston Martin etc - are all in conglomerates anyway. Lamborghini don't have to shift tonnes of Gallardos to make money if people are buying enough VW Golfs at the other end.

And this is how it should be - bring back the luxobarge! Get the Porsche posers into Audis where they should be!

Surely VW could build an uber-TT hairdresser's barge that cost 911 money for the city slickers to drive? Now Porsche own VW and Audi own Lamborghini, that sort of thing would mean they wouldn't have to compromise their 'premium brands'. Same goes for Aston Martin - beef up the Jaguar XK, sprawl the range out like the E-Type and keep the AMV8 Vantage in blue-chip territory.

I appreciate the need to chase sales and I know the market is willing, but there are ways for corporations to give this market what it wants without compromising the exclusivity of what it aspires to.