Car dealers: Businesspeople are concerned about saving their companies rather than buying luxury cars

Automotive dealers and the importers specialised in selling luxury cars are saying that sales were extremely low in January and estimates about the expensive car segment being less affected by the current economic context are being revised.

"The financial crisis is now being felt on the luxury car segment. Whereas last autumn we estimated we will sell 40 Bentley cars on the domestic market in 2009, we have now lowered the target to 25," said Adrian Pascu, Bentley and Lamborghini brand manager with Porsche Romania.
In addition, the showroom dedicated to Porsche Romania's premium brands was pushed back for the end of the year instead of September as initially scheduled.
 
Players on the luxury car market say the decision to no longer purchase such a car was greatly influenced by the cost cutting campaign on which most companies have embarked.

"There are clients for luxury cars, they can afford to buy such a car, only that they postponed the time to do it. Businesspeople are now very concerned about saving their own companies, about cutting costs and about avoiding redundancies," said Mike Costache, country manager of Maserati, a brand imported in Romania by the AutoItalia Group. The harsher lending norms starting last October have affected the sales of both volume cars and luxury brands.

"Financing had a very powerful impact on sales. For instance, we had a client come in with a leasing application approved as late as this week, which had been filed early in December, therefore we are talking an over two-month delay. We can no longer compare today's sales with 2008, but rather with 2005," said Cristian Serban, commercial manager of Premium Auto, the importer of Land Rover and Jaguar in Romania, a company that is part of the Tiriac Holding.

Ziarul Financiar