Australia nearing the top of Lamborghini’s global pecking order

What resources downturn?

Australia has been identified as one of Lamborghini’s most important global markets after local sales surged to record highs in 2016.

Speaking with motoring.com.au this month, Lamborghini Asia Pacific boss Andrea Balti said that Australia was now ranked eighth globally for Raging Bull sales. With 111 vehicles sold in 2016, Australia now sits behind China (151) but above Switzerland (106) and France (94).

The growth locally has been so emphatic that Lamborghini has created an Australian outpost for a factory-linked staffer. The new role has already been filled and will formally commence in the coming months.

Australia’s newfound status within the Lamborghini hierarchy is hardly surprising, given demand for like-minded makes including Ferrari and Porsche. Australia is also one of the largest per-capita markets for Audi’s Audi Sport division, BMW’s M offshoot and Mercedes’ AMG products.

“When I started at Lamborghini in 2010 the market was doing about 40 cars. Last year for the first time we exceeded 100 cars. The market has really grown a lot,” Balti said.

“The extreme super sports car market is limited at the end of the day. Australia takes about 1000 cars, for vehicles that are comparable with ours. It’s a big growth; it used to only be about 600 so that’s really impressive.

“There are several elements behind the growth. Mostly, this country has always been the perfect place for cars like this because of the maturity of the customers.

“[It is also] their wealth … when you have the ambition and the money you can achieve to buy the best cars.”

What’s more interesting is that Australia’s order bank remained one of the largest by the end of 2016, limited by Lamborghini’s restricted global production across both the Huracan and Aventador model lines.

“Australia is one of the top 10 markets in the world. We have 139 dealers in the world at the moment in over 45 countries,” he said.

“We produce 3400 cars globally, and Australia constituted 111 deliveries last year. Deliveries is always tricky though, Australia was one of the countries with the largest order bank at the end of the year

“In reality we don’t have enough supply to meet the demand of this market, so Australia would have done more if we’d had all the cars that the market was ordering. However you cannot always catch up with the demand as we have limited production capacity.”

Our appetite for Lamborghinis is only tipped to increase with the introduction of the Urus SUV in early 2018, according to Balti, who described Australia as “the perfect market” for the high-rider.

Top 10 Lamborghini markets - 2016

USA (1041 sales)

Japan (359 sales)

UK (326 sales)

Germany (250 sales)

Canada (210 sales)

Middle East (164 sales)

China (151 sales)

Australia (111 sales)

Switzerland (106 sales)

France (94 sales)