Hello Everyone, I was talking with a friend over the weekend. He and I were remembering an article that was published when Luca (Then New President of Ferrari) was interviewed. In that article he discussed the crazy prices and speculation that occurred in the eighties. One of the cars discussed was the F40. Luca said he would build as many F40s as it took for the prices to come down. Here we are 18 years later and the price of a delivery mile 599 is $538,000. And it listed for $340,000ish. In the eighties a F40 new went for over a million and then came down to 400s. How times have changed. Here we are in an environment where every new Ferrari is sold and it is impossible to order or expect to be able to buy a new Ferrari. I do realize Ferrari is now into newer markets and that impacts cars available to us here in the USA. What the answer is I do not know. Any thoughts / comments? Thanks, Tom
The economy tanked during the production run of the F40 and by the end they were not an easy sell and TR512's were being discounted. If you really want a Ferrari at sticker or less pray for a bad economy.
The number of new wealthy eastern europeans and UAE citizens have increased demand for cars like the Enzo and 599. I actually think that US demand for Ferraris has dropped compared to the 80's and 90's where there weren't many real choices for high end sports cars. I know a few former Ferrari owners who are now very happy Z06 owners.
Very true and in fact I believe that is the reason Ferrari is working so hard at penetrating those markets and Asia as well. I think with their limits on production and the costs of doing business here with legislation and aftersale costs the profit picture here is not as good as in many of those markets. I would not be surprised to learn Ferrari's long term goal is to turn North America into a minority market and just scrape the cream.
From what I can tell Ferrari is doing the right thing to keep the prices high here. Everything does go in cycles and Ferrari has had a long run of high prices and demand. I don't know when it will end but it will. Most times the turn around happens at the peak and changes fast. It may be time soon.
Well it seems like the only place the prices are really jacked that high is in the US. The reason being them shipping a lot of cars to the new markets instead of here. The thing is, that the US market likes this no depreciation real high demand thing they have going on. So for them it makes perfect sense to send cars to the super rich in these new developing markets and keep the prices high over here. Short of a terrorist attack or something I don't think the economy will peaking anytime soon in the US to the point where people are dumping ferraris.
