Two questions about "The List"

1) How long is the list if you offer to buy the 612OTO/599/Scuderia they've been stuck with for months?

2) How long is the list if you offer to pay $50k over MSRP?

3) How much does your dealer, FNA (if you're in the US) or S.p.A. care about a buyer of two, or five, or even ten new Ferraris?

 

I would suggest #1 and negotiate a simultaneous 458 order as part of the deal.

 

I hate to break this to you but there is no such thing as a "list". It's like the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, the Unicorn. It doesn't exist. Your dealer wants you to think there is a "list". It's just a way to string you along. One day you will get the mythical call from your dealer saying you are at the top of the "list" and it's time to order your new car. This is after your dealer has exhausted every potential buyer he knows and is now stuck with a car and has no buyer. Sorry to say it this way but it's the truth.

 

don't know about US. can only talk about my dealer in Switzerland:
1) No. And even if you would propose to pay extra to get the car earlier than others, the dealer would refuse.
2) There is a list. If you order now you get the car probably September 2011
3) you can buy one of his second hand 430, waiting for the 458 to arrive: it would not change anything on your position on the list. Only thing you can do is negotiate now a price range at which he will take back the 430 when the 458 arrive

 

"don't know about US"


See posts #4 and #2, above. OTOH, my Porsche and Audi dealers have real lists with real names and real deposits.

 

Yeah, same here. I don't know what a Ferrari dealer wouldn't have a list.

 

In Hong Kong the dealer has a real list with real deposits

 

Ditto for Singapore

 

+1

 

"In Hong Kong the dealer has a real list with real deposits"


Does the order of names on the list matter at all? In the boom years here, one could leave a deposit and wait a long time to be called - much longer than others, for example.

 

There of course is a list, has to be. If you're wealthy guy who buys every new Ferrari model that comes out , your going to tell me they won't automatically be among the first to get one? I'd be pretty upset if I was passed over.

 

"If you're wealthy guy who buys every new Ferrari model that comes out , your going to tell me they won't automatically be among the first to get one? I'd be pretty upset if I was passed over."



Exactly why there isn't a list.

 

That's the irony of the "list". That's why the "list" is a joke. The buyer you described is not going to be put on a list. He can walk in anytime and says he wants a car and the dealer will get him one at the expense of someone else. What good is a list if someone with more buying power can get in front of you? You may never move up the list. Even if the dealer says you are number 23 on the list and shows you the names of the 22 people in front of you how do you really know that the 23rd car will be yours? Are you going to camp out at the dealer 365 days a year and count every 458 that comes in?

Let me relate a true story. My friend ordered a 550. It came in a was sitting at the warehouse in New Jersey. The car never arrived at the dealer and my friend had to order another one. He was never told why or what happened to his original 550. Later he found out what happened. Mario Andretti called FNA and wanted a 550. They told him to come up to the warehouse and pick one out. And that's what happened to my friend's car. Do you really think someone like Mario Andretti is going to have to get on some list? List? Get real.

 

A pretty churlish state of affairs......

 

Sorry to doubt your story. Of course there is special treatment for VIPs (definition based on relationship more than money) and friends of Ferrari management..., who can get cars before others. But it is not managed at the dealer level, it is directly managed by Maranello. So you may become a car before others, but it is a special allocation for the dealer, who gets one more car than originally planned.

 

Completely disagree with your post.

The problem is that there is more than one Mario in terms of importance and what happens if they both want the same car? A list is inevitable for all levels in the food chain.

VVVVIP list is the hardest for the dealer because everyone is a number 1 and number 2 is as good as last.

VIP (normal customer who buys most new production models) is where the dealer is in a position to make choices. Usually it comes down to who is going to do more in the future than reward what was done in the past.

The dealer you moention should lose his dealership if he sold a car that someone ordered and paid deposit for under contract to someone else. FNA would take a very dim view of that

 

In Hong Kong it certainly matters. The major owners tend to be friends and they keep an eye on who gets what when. The dealer is rather forced to be legitimate with the list as there is no customer who is worth p_ssing off a lot of others. HK is quite straight-forward. There are the VVVVVIP's who have bought the best of the best - FXX Evo's, 599XX and have serious cars all the way up to 250GTO's. There are the VVVIP's who buy every new model and have many deposits in many years in advance and deserve to be high on the list. And then there are a lot of others where only the dealer really knows the situation.

Hong Kong unfortunately is always in the boom years when it comes to Ferrari. HK sold more 599XX's than any other single dealership, 599GTO sold out in days, 25 16M's, 3 599 China.... Dealer does a great job with a very wealthy customer base

 

I think "the list" a bit more professional in HK than it is in the USA. In the USA, IMO, the list is a mechanism for dealers to project allocations internally and among themselves and to keep buyers unnecessarily paranoid. If you're in a position to spend $300k USD on a car in the USA, by George, you're gonna get the chance.

For the OP, when your dealer said "you're on the list" he was saying, "we are going to add an additional tick mark to our internal allocation projections for that day when FNA says, can you sell one, two, three or five 458's in August/September/October?" Then the dealer will call you and and say "are you ready?" Different dealers get different allocations because of different markets. If dealers play the "list game" and overshoot an allocation, it's not good for future allocations and future special car invites.

Ferrari is trying hard to avoid the trap Lamborghini fell into. Too many dealers, too many lists, too many cars. No exclusivity, damage to brand, etc...

So in the end, the list is an internal thing for the dealer, but don't worry, you'll get your car.

 

DM18, I respect your disagreement with my post. Apparently the dealers in HK are more honorable than US dealers. The story I told was not the dealer's fault but the fault of FNA.

 

Totally agree with you.
It still surprises me that people still think that what applies to their home town dealership applies to the rest of the world. HK, Singapore sells more Ferrari and Lambo per capita then a lot of the bigger countries.

A current situation in Singapore similar to the "Mario" story... the first 6 458s will be delivered to the usual suspects.. suddenly the dealership gets a mail from Ferrari Spa stating that Mr XXX (not on the dealership list) will receive the 1st 458. Simply because he has a personal relationship with Luca. This will always happen and it will be out of the dealerships hands.