Ferrari starting to dilute image?

I hardly think 5,000 cars a year is flooding the market especially when you consider only about 1500 cars come to the US a year.

There have been 170,000 corvette alone produced in just the last 10 years.
Thats more cars than ferrari has produced since it's inception.

If you only want a car for it's exclusivness buy a Maybach or a Noble.

 

the more they make the cheaper they will be in the used market i hope they make millions of F430

 

Wasn't it Groucho Marx who said, "I wouldn't want to belong to any club that would have me as a member." Anyway, I, too, wonder about Ferrari's brand image and exclusivity because now, even I have one !

Mike

 

I would guess that number of Corvettes is low. They produced about 34,000 in 2004 alone.

 

yeah, it's more than that I just posted the number from 96-01
Corvette
1996 17,805
1997 22,724
1998 29,208
1999 29,963
2000 31,208
2001 33,655
TOTAL 164,563

 

And FWIW, Porsche production is considerably higher than that.

http://www.autointell.com/sports_cars/porsche/business-figures/porsche22.htm

 

Where do you live that there is a Ferrrari on every corner?? While I do agree to some extent that their is a lot of cars for sale, that could be due to the fact that so many automakers seem to be getting into this limited production market, which probably causes guys not to hold onto their cars as long as they used to? Hasnt Ferrari produced 5000 cars a year for some time now?

 

Wow, really? damn, they are getting cheaper! Hell, all I have to do is save my unemployment checks for the next 76 years and I'll have have one like everybody else!

Must be nice swimming in money...grumble grumble...

 

I think a more important "brand dilution" indicator than numbers is product category.

As long as the production numbers follow--somewhat--the population numbers of qualified buyers, then the overall percentage of cars in the marketplace should remain relatively even over time.

More important, I think, is the categories of cars Ferrari chooses to produce. If they ever make a &@^* SUV, they might as well take out guns and shoot themselves in their heads.

I had never been a big fan of Porsche cars (didn't like the froggy face, not wild about the rear mounted air-cooled engine, etc.) but when the Boxster came out I watched for a few years...and bought one. It has been a great car. Of course, right after my Boxster buy, Porsche announced their SUV.

Now guys can buy their soccer mom wives a for-real Porsche badge--with a SUV attached. Yuk. I thought I was buying from a real sports car company.

That's textbook brand dilution by adding the wrong product category in my opinion. And far worse than making a bunch of Boxsters. (After all, the Boxster is supposed to make buyers like me want to move up to a 911).

 

Firstlly, congrats on the 360!
Secondly, I think its all a matter of geography. I can tell you that I have the only F-car in my county. From my standpoint, an appropriate question to other F-chatters would be: "Is primer and body rust common automotive color choices where y'all live?"

 

Good post, although I have a 911 (993 flavor) and, like it or not, short of an exotic I think it has more presence than anything else on the road. It screams fast, German and exclusive even now.

I'm not a fan of the Cayenne - would rather see Land Rover make the European SUV - but it may have kept the Porsche brand independent. Porsche is tiny - not compared to Ferrari, but compared to every other company that makes sub-$100K cars. Porsche is an interesting case study in straddling the exotic world and the real-car world. I admire them for making the CGT and the base Boxster - one almost a museum piece, the other a car you would buy and use up. If Porsche killed the base Cayenne, they might preserve their brand better.

Ferrari will kill itself if it makes trucks or goes downmarket.

I was also curious about where you can live and see 360's in every driveway. I'm in San Diego, and I go for a week at a time without seeing one. FWIW, I don't think Ferrari has diluted its brand, except that the newer cars aren't as heartstopping as an F50 or as distinctive as a 308/328 or 512TR.

 

Like I said, in Cobb County (population about 500,000 or so), I have seen other Ferraris here exactly twice in eight years! Whenever I tool around in my 328, I note other people noticing, since, like me, they haven't seen Ferraris around much, either!

 

Reason fo 360s being so "common" is everyone is selling them for the 430. As for the Enzo, yeah, 900k is "cheap"? They only made 400-some of these babies. Sadly, Ferrari is out to make money. That is their only goal. Will they keep the brand and imagine in mind? Sure, but they won't stick to it if they can't bring in revenues.

5,000 a year is very small in a world of around 6 Billion people. We have around 54,000 people with an estimated net worth $30 million or more alone in this country. Alot of rich people existed, yet the new Ferraris are in demand more then ever.

 

Ferraris, IMO, are much more driver friendly. You can drive these things all day long. The 360 is extremely comfortable and I believe this is why we are seeing such large production runs. This in turn leads to the increase of Ferraris on the road.

15 years ago, a Ferrari was expensive and hard to drive. No power steering, no A/C. Imagine taking the wife to the dinner in a Ferrari -- you are all sweaty when you pull up to the valet. You just didnt drive the car too much.

Now it remains relatively expensive but is very easy to drive. I have heard of 360s with 100k miles and every Ferrari I have owned and will buy will see 20k miles or more.

The trend will continue. In some regards, it is great to be able to drive such a fine automobile all the time. But on the other hand, I do miss the "raw" Ferrari experience of days gone by. If Ferrari continues in this direction, do you think they might move too far away from their roots?

 

Porsche is an interesting company. They are moving from a niche market to a full-line, upper luxury brand. However, they are "downmarketing" like Mercedes. If I am corrected, all the new lines are equal or higher then the Boxster in price. As for Ferarri, remember, Aston Martin is popping its line up to 5,000 with a cheaper model then all the Ferrari models, Bentley I believe is trying to get to 10,000 a year. Lambo wants to push to 5,000 a year. I think the reason that Ferrari seems more common is Ferrari has brand name that none of the other companies can reach. 5,000 is still exclusive, and its not as if Ferrari is going downmarket. Prices are going up with the new models.

 

You are correct - Boxster is as low as they go. It's a smart entry car for Porsche.

Mercedes screwed up big time. 'Nother thread, 'nother time.

I think Ferrari makes the right amount of cars, given the size of the affluent car-buying population. There's a balance between recognizability and exclusivity. If you see a car once a month, it can still seem rare and exotic. If anything the decline of Mercedes, and downmarketing of Porsche, will buoy up Ferrari's mystique.

Again, I wonder if the original post wasn't just because of the coincidence of seeing three 360's in a day or something like that. Anyone who posts here can sniff out a Ferrari anywhere in the same ZIP code. For those of us who don't have one (yet!), Ferrari sightings are still a rare treat.

 

The preceding quote is "hitting it on the nail" as far as I am concerned.
I drove a Boxster, then a 911 Carrera, then a 911 Turbo, before
my current car--a 456M GT.

I have never accepted the Cayenne as a "Porsche" in the truest sense
of name. And why would someone want to "move up" to a 911
(993, 996, or 997) when the exclusivity of the 911 "ain't what it used
to be".

In another thread this week some have written that Porsche--when
it comes to engineering, has no rival. I agree, from experience.
It is a highly reliable automotive company.

Just maybe some of the charm or charisma has waned.

 

i am not a suv fan , nor do i drive one, but the cayenne is the nicest driving and best handling suv out there...i drove my friends cay. s and it was actually enjoyable to drive...so porsche want to make a suv for sports car lovers, whats wrong with that....plus, they doubled their profits, which is the whole reason porsche exists...and if ferrari makes a low hundred k sports car as is rumored, they will do so to make more money...ferrari would love it if everyone in the country owned a ferrari,..it only means more profits for them....

 

Strategy is as much about knowing what business your company is not in as it is about know what business your company is in. And knowing what business you are not in may actually be more important; it helps prevent temptation to chase short-term profits at the risk of long-term viability.

And a brand is nothing more than a promise: A promise to buyers and prospects about your lines of business, your quality, your service; indeed, your very identity. Breaking that promise has dire consequences.

When I buy a brand, I am paying that company to keep their promise. If they don't, they are far less valuable to me. It would be wise of any firm to learn what buyers will be brand-loyal vs. brand curious (that is, loyal buyers over time as opposed to one-and-done buyers who had their curiosity satisfied).

If "everyone in the country" owned a Ferrari, then F-car pricing would be commodity-based and the result of intense rivalry among low-cost dealers selling to price buyers--not based on what is probably the greatest long-term differentiation strategy in automotive history.