VFACTS: High-end sportscar sales surge

ECONOMIC growth in Australia may not be matching the heady days of the mining boom, but it seems plenty of us are doing well enough to buy high-end sportscars in record numbers.

Last year saw the race for sales bragging rights heat up between many exotic car-makers, with the sportscar over $200,000 market enjoying its best year on record with 1737 new registrations in the segment.

While the aforementioned market saw a 12.2 per cent growth over 2015’s sales total, the sportscar over $80,000 segment also saw a modest 1.8 per cent growth for a year-end total of 7499.

Both Porsche and Mercedes-AMG sold over 4000 units each – on the back of new product including the turbocharged 911 and Boxster from the former and the C 63 S and GT S from the latter – but the usually close race between the two German compatriots turned into a blowout last year.

In 2016, Porsche enjoyed its most successful year yet, improving its sales total by 344 units to 4434 – up just over eight per cent compared to its tally in 2015.

However, AMG easily surpassed its cross-country compatriot with 5286 cars sold, an improvement of about 25 per cent, thanks in part to the introduction of entry-level AMG 43 models.

Exotic car-maker McLaren also saw record growth with 93 cars sold in Australia last year, 57 more than the 36 vehicles it sold in 2015.

While small volumes of very expensive cars can make a large percentage change deceptively impressive, a 158.3 per cent increase is not to be sneezed at.

Italian supercar rival Ferrari also saw growth year-on-year, increasing its 2016 total by 12.6 per cent to 188 new registrations with the introduction of the new 488 GTB and refreshed GTC4 Lusso.

Fellow Italian exotic car-maker Lamborghini also sold an extra 57 cars, up to 127 from 84 in 2015, an improvement of 51.2 per cent partly due to the rear-drive and drop-top Huracan variants.

Other solid performances from high-end brands included Bentley who enjoyed a 6.9 per cent improvement on their way to 109 sales.

The only downturn for luxury sportscar purveyors came from Maserati and Aston Martin, who saw a respective 27.8 and 9.6 per cent drop on yearly sales to 83 and 103 sales.

Even then, those minor downturns came after several years of sustained growth for both brands, and were related mostly due to limited stock availability on new models.

The competition for sportscar sales has never been more eagerly contested, but it seems to be growing the segment rather than eroding the brands.