The Beijing Auto Show raked in big business with no less than 40 luxury cars worth 150 million yuan or about $22 million being sold. In fact, the mighty Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport got an address in China on the first day of the Auto Show itself. Priced a cool 38 million yuan, the car that epitomizes the ultimate in luxury belongs to an extremely rare species with just 300 of them available in the world. The Bugatti Veyron commands 2.65 million euros in Europe.
According to the staff associated with the exhibition, the elite car will be transported to France where it will be put through a revamp procedure before shipping it back to China for the actual delivery.
The E4 and E5 exhibition halls at the Auto Show housed the luxury brands with the average price of the car being over 2 million yuan. Gao Mengxiong, the sales manager for Maserati in China added that of the six cars that were on display at its stand, five have been sold out and have already been delivered to its customers. Gao further added that there are 10 more cars waiting to be delivered to its customers within the next six to eight weeks. The cars are currently being customized as per the requirements laid down by customers. With each of the cars costing around 2.5 million yuan, all of this translated to business worth about 37 million yuan for Maserati.
The British luxury car maker Rolls-Royce too had reason to smile and revealed that it garnered some ‘big orders’ at the Auto Show. Rolls-Royce also informed that there has been a taker for its Rolls-Royce Ghost.
The Beijing Auto Show also meant big business for speed merchant Porsche which had put up 3 models on display. The celebrated German car makers disclosed that it has sold eight cars within three days with its most expensive car being sold for 2 million yuan.
Zheng Shunjing, director of Bugatti’s Chinese operations has said in an interview with the Beijing News that the buyers of its cars in China are younger than anywhere else. For instance, most of its Chinese customers are yet to reach 40, which makes them 5 to 10 years younger than their Western counterparts.
Apart from this, the automobiles companies were impressed with the purchasing power the Chinese exhibited at the Auto Show. The Chinese, it seems, have the money and they are ready to splurge.
