Hybrids and lean diesels may be in the news constantly, but Mercedes-Benz sold and delivered nearly $30 million worth of high-performance vehicles in Australia last month.
According to the Senior Manager for Corporate Communications at Mercedes-Benz Australia, David McCarthy, 132 units of the performance brand found homes here in January, as the company caught up with demand left unsated last year.
As we reported earlier, 775 AMG vehicles were sold and delivered in Australia during 2011. But the company would have sold more if not for supply constraints at the factory.
The rash of AMG deliveries in January filled a lot of orders placed months earlier, as explained in our report. McCarthy believes the January result was "probably" double the number of cars sold in January 2011, but concedes that the number was swollen by the factory catching up with the orders placed in the months prior. One positive note, McCarthy acknowledges, is the brand loyalty of customers ready to wait months for the right specification of car.
"I think it shows that there's a demand for the product; it's not just consistent, it's growing — and people are prepared to wait for it."
Asked how long those customers were waiting, McCarthy indicated one special order dated back as far as the third quarter of last year.
"There were a couple of special order cars in there... One of them was an E 63. It was ordered in August... nearly six months."
Not far down the road from Benz's corporate headquarters, BMW is bringing out the big guns with its new M5. Says Piers Scott, the company's Head of Corporate Communications, a quiet month for BMW's M Cars in January is set to be followed by a sales feast over the rest of the year. Like Benz, BMW has experienced stock shortages in recent times and the company sold just 27 M Cars during the month — over a hundred less than Benz's AMG figure.
"January tells only a small part of the story," says Scott. "The best is yet to come for us, this year; with M5 this month, M6 later in the year and still some 1M Coupes to deliver, and round two of the Pure Edition M3 Coupe... It looks like being a big year in what is the 40th anniversary of M."
But supply is going to be an on-going challenge for the company during 2012. Scott prefers not to consider it a "problem"; it's just part of the BMW strategy to balance supply against demand as best the company can.
"We always build one car fewer than we know we can sell," said Scott, quoting "the M Car guys" in Germany.
The situation in which BMW Australia finds itself seems more like the factory is building 100 cars fewer than it can sell. To illustrate, the 1M Coupe has already sold out once and Scott expects it to sell out again.
"We sold all of our initial 100 cars before they docked, and we've got names against all 125 of the additional cars that we managed to procure — which have not yet landed. You cannot get a 1M Coupe for love nor money..."
BMW has another batch of 50 Pure Edition M3s entering the country this year and Scott expects these to sell as quickly as the first run of 100. While he wouldn't reveal the number of forward orders the company is holding for the new M5, he did say that there's a four-month waiting list in the US for the twin-turbo V8 sedan. Scott feels that demand for the M5 will diminish over time and the disparity between supply and demand will level out. In the short term demand for the M5 is as high as it's likely to get.
"Where M5 is concerned... [it's] an iconic car that only comes around once every seven years — and we're right on the cusp of that launch."
One point where Scott and McCarthy seem agreed is that neither brand will bleed customers to the other due to one or the other of the two companies being unable to meet demand.
"This type of customer is one of the more analytical and passionate customers that you could possibly have," Scott explained. "When they want a car they want THAT car. And I don't think that demand could be so easily satiated just by convenience of another brand having a comparable car available. If you're in the market for an M5, nothing else will do..."
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