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Ultra-exotics get green light from Red China
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WWMD? Indeed, what would Mao do? Would the author of the Little Red Book trade in his Red Flag limousine for a little red Ferrari?
He could now. Automobili Lamborghini will establish a branch in Beijing, starting operations at the beginning of 2009. The automaker already has three dealerships in the People’s Republic but it’s hardly alone. China’s careening anything-goes economy has made the Asian giant easy pickins’ for builders of hyperexotic automobiles. Lamborghini, which began selling cars in China in 2005, sold 28 cars in 2007 is headed toward 80 in 2008.
China is actually the third largest market for Rolls-Royce, behind only the United States and United Kingdom, with 108 cars sold in 2007. The British marque opened its sixth showroom in China this month and two more are scheduled. Bentley, which sold 258 cars in China in 2007, counts China as its fifth most important market. Aston Martin is reserving for China five of the seventy-seven One-77 sports car it will build.Ferraris are going fast in the Middle Kingdom as well, with 200 cars sold in the first nine months of 2008. East Asia (including Japan and South Korea as well as China) now accounts for a quarter of Ferrari sales, equaling that of the United States.
Unlike Mao’s day, when cars like the Red Flag were intended for party leaders to enjoy for the masses, today’s most expensive cars are owned by entrepreneurs whose wealth has seen staggering growth. China had no billionaires in 2002, but by 2006 had fifteen and a year later the number had climbed to sixty-six. That total has slashed in recent months, at least on paper, by losses in the Chinese stock market that caused the combined worth of the country's 400 richest people to plummet by 40% to a mere $173 billion.
Still, those who have made their own personal long march in the swashbuckling new market economy can open their little red checkbook on every ultra-exotic brand on the planet. Making the Great Leap Forward are:
| Marque | Dealers | Opened | Sales/Year |
| Aston Martin | 5 | 2007 | 100/2008e |
| Bentley | 7 | 2005 | 338/2007 |
| Ferrari | 9 | 2004 | 260/2008e |
| Lamborghini | 3 | 2005 | 28/2007 |
| Maserati | 10 | 2004 | 281/2007 |
| Maybach | 3 | 2004 | n/a |
| Porsche | 21 | 2001 | 4,179/2007 |
| Rolls-Royce | 6 | 2003 | 108/2007 |
2008e: Estimate for 2008 model year.
None of course are a Red Flag limousine, long as a school bus but without the elegance, but the handful of extraordinarily rich Chinese don’t seem to mind paying for the expensive imported vehicles, on which taxes and fees can double the cost of ownership.
"If the car is more expensive, they're more excited about it," Shaun Rein told BusinessWeek magazine. Rein, managing director of China Market Research Group in Shanghai, which frequently studies Chinese consumers' attitudes towards luxury goods said, "They enjoy saying 'It hurts me to spend this money.' It's all about where there's added cachet."
If you got it, flaunt it, seems to the motto of the new China automotive scene. It's a Cultural Revolution the likes of which Mao could never have foreseen.
Illustrations, top to bottom: Ghost busters spy shot of Mao checking out Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder; Rolls-Royce showroom in Shenzhen, China, courtesy Rolls-Royce.
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