Lamborghini rides Chinese taste for SUVs - Fortune
Earlier this summer, Lamborghini, the Italian supercar brand that counts annual car sales in the thousands but price tags in the hundreds of thousands, announced it was building a sport utility vehicle. The angular-looking concept version called Urus, unveiled for the first time in Beijing in 2012, had the same built-for-playboys appearance as Lamborghini’s cars: sharp lines, wide rims, race-car aesthetics. Lamborghini already tried and failed once to market a popular SUV in the 1980s, with what became the Hummer-like LM002. This time Lamborghini is more confident. It says SUV sales will double total Lamborghini sales practically overnight, to 6,000 vehicles a year, and diversify a famously un-diverse company. The idea: Customers who own its supercars, but drive another company’s luxury SUV when they need more space beyond a tiny front-trunk, would upgrade to a Lambo SUV with the same Italian styling. Lamborghini’s SUV provides a window into what’s happening at several industries relying on China for growth even as its economy slows. In the first half of the year, for instance, consumer services grew almost 8. 5%, while industrial output lagged behind at 6. 1% growth, according to China’s National Bureau of Statistics. Source: fortune.com
