Former Australian Ferrari importer savages F430

FAIL!

I have forwarded this to my contact at Ferrari SpA in Italy

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^


He's back 😜

 

It's weird, can just hear how 'Croaky' would say that.

 

Shhhhhhh ..... we want him to stay around for a while

 

Interesting insight, I have heard some interesting stories about that era, one second hand from a friend who writes warranties for various Major Manufactures who told me that a Ferrari Dealer made the comment that the local markup was so high, it was cheaper to import a car through HongKong and pay the fine and still be in front...

 

Sounds similar to what that ****wit said about the 348 when it was new.

What's his name???? It's long gone from my memory these days....

Malakamezelo? Something like that.

 

This guy was around about the same time as NC seems to be going OK.
Don't open if you think there is no life after racing.

http://www.nzlifeandleisure.co.nz/life-in-top-gear/

 

Yep, same here, does sound like sour grapes to me though.

 

Ateco never had the depth of staff to be dealing in the Alfa Romeo end of the market much less Ferrari/Maserati.

Their money was made in selling newish eastern bloc and therefore cheap labour product until their inbuilt time bombs went off or as in the case of Citroen and Alfa the re-establishment of faded formerly prestigious brands where they thought there may be a dollar.

Essentially he got Ferrari/Maserati by his yachting exploits with the Maxi christened Alfa Romeo.

It well and truly ended (perhaps inevitably) the enthusiast driven dealerships under unfortunate circumstances.

Of course the dealership experience in the eyes of some suffered and It was inevitable Ferrari would intervene as they had commenced doing in other parts of the world.

With the exception of what may or may not have happened around the Cascade Coal incident the man is quite extraordinary in his achievements especially given his setbacks.

Getting up driveways is just another yardstick about what makes car important to you.

 

Someone in a credible position at the time told me that the decision was more a result of the size of the bribe.

I knew NC through yacht racing in the 80's. A very, very hard man.

Ferrari themselves contributed to the demise of enthusiast dealers with their imposition of elaborate and expensive showrooms, without regard for the economics of low volume markets like Australia.

 

That ties a few things together thanks for sharing.

 

I heard from the dealer in Brisbane some years back that Ferrari had to approve ALL the designs and insisted on special considerations resulting in an $8M showroom and the dealer paying for a Ferrari representative flying to Australia to give their blessing.

If he didn't have several other high-end manufacturers on board he wouldn't have survived on the Ferrari dealership alone

This probably explained some of the pillaging of the local prices

 

But buyers (at least in qld) weren't dealing with Ateco directly, there was another layer of dealer below the importer remember. Which must also have contributed to the 'arms and legs' pricing of the cars.

 

Ateco was the importer/wholesaler, the dealers the retailers. It's the same model used by 99% of manufacturers. The importer's margin covers the cost of compliancing, shipping, minimum volume commitments and managing the retail channel. e.g. Ateco had to sign up for a minimum number of each model, regardless of actual demand. I've been inside the warehouse where the unsold cars were stored...

In NSW Ateco happened to own FMS, but FMS still paid the same wholesale price to Ateco for their cars. There are a myriad of regulations that distributors have to adhere to, they can't play favourites.

 

I believe Ferrari just sent V12 cars for them to sell that weren't ordered?

 

4 million years ago,I worked for Ateco Suzuki at Thornleigh at the time the LJ50 2 stroke 4wd was released......a far cry to the major company they turned into.

 

no. They had to buy a certain proportion of V12's in order to get the V8's they needed.

The success of the 458 created a big pool of unsold red/tan 599's ...

I suspect that this will have changed now that Ferrari has direct control - they won't want to penalise themselves.

 

The pressure to take V12 is now being applied directly to the dealers. That said the f12 has been selling well, there is apparently a 11 month delivery time.
The plethora of FF's for sale currently are mainly the cars that dealers were forced to buy as demo's, they are turning them over to make way for the new GTC4/ Lusso demo's
There are deals to had on near new FF's.....
M

 

lol

He has a nice superyacht too
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Understand all that but was just pointing out the punters weren't actually dealing with Ateco and I think it was actually the dealer, not importer, who had to stump up for the showrooms and hire sales staff so any purchasing gripes are more correctly attributed to them, rather than the importer. Anyway it's ancient history now...

 

Did he like it?
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Who cares, means nothing to me

 

Inchcape owns the Subaru importing business as well as a dozen Subaru retail dealers...
There are supposed not to be favourites but in the NSW & Victorian market, these dealers make up a quarter of all sales...

 

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