Ferrari fine with parallel imports

Ferrari is happy for Australians to take advantage of the federal goverment's proposed new parallel import laws, which from 2018 could allow buyers to purchase their cars anywhere in the world and bring them Down Under.

Speaking to motoring.com.au at last week's Australian debut of the Ferrari GTC4Lusso in Sydney, Ferrari Far East CEO Dieter Knechtel said it does not matter where customers purchased their cars.

“We cannot restrict anything; it is a customer’s choice where to buy his car, and that is actually what the government has in mind to allow this freedom. We will not stand against that,” Knechtel said

Ferrari's Far East boss stated Australian dealer network did not have “a stranglehold” on Ferrari customers, who traditionally line up for years in advance for a new Ferrari.

“The customer doesn’t have a dealer tag on him. It doesn’t matter where he lives or what he does, or the dealer that he belongs to, because we have a database about the customer, not about the dealer. It’s not just his [the dealer’s] customer, it’s our customer,” he stated.

Under rule changes proposed by the Liberal Federal Government, Australians will be allowed to directly import new and near-new cars directly from Japan and the UK from 2018. The federal minister for Major Projects, Territories and Local Government, Paul Fletcher, made the announcement of the proposed changes in February.

Knechtel said that Ferrari was quite familiar with cars being bought in one country and then shipped to another.

“It is not at all a new thing for us that a customer buys his car in another country. We are tracing and following these flows everywhere in the world.

“We have so many customers in all parts of the world. We have Singaporean customers who buy their car in Hong Kong and use it in the UAE. We have a customer who buys the car in London and afterwards ships it to Hong Kong.

“We are very familiar with this inflow and outflow of cars. We know where the cars are, and we can then assign the car to one of the dealers in that country.

“The customer’s choice of where he wants to use his car -- this is absolutely no problem whatsoever for us.”

Knechtel confirmed that customers who buy their Ferraris overseas and bring them to Australia will continue to benefit from Ferrari’s seven-year free maintenance program.

“We have the seven years maintenance, which is worldwide. So if a car comes in to a new country, the maintenance continues.”

However, while Knechtel said that the local dealer network would not give parallel importers the cold shoulder, he hoped that Australian customers would buy locally because it made things easier for Ferrari.

“We would encourage that the car is sourced in Australia because probably that would make a lot of things easier, but we are not standing against it [parallel imports] at all.”

Knechtel said that customers who buy their cars in Australia would benefit from “a feeling of belonging”.

“Of course we’re still here; we’re taking care of the car. But, you know, it’s like this feeling of belonging, or attachment to a dealership which is taking care of you I think makes a difference.

“The dealers in Australia deserve to be in a position where they can say to someone; ‘You are in good hands with me because I have done everything to ensure that you find what you need’."

While Knechtel insisted that owners of privately imported Ferraris would be treated no differently to customer who bought locally, he appeared to contradict himself by saying that Ferrari customers who bought their cars here would have added benefits.

“I believe it is important that we focus on the upgrade of the quality of our work with the customer at the point of sale, and not only at the point of sale but what I mentioned earlier [about] the ownership experience…

“[We need to be] giving the customer a clear sign that when he sources the car from the official network in Australia he is in good hands and he can get a lot of things that he cannot get when he sources the car elsewhere,” Knechtel told motoring.com.au.

Knetchel went on to list a number of exclusive enticements Ferrari offers to its customers -- regardless of where they bought their Ferrari.

“We have a few ideas to further upgrade the ownership experience for our customers here in Australia. One example I can give you is we had on Sunday night, with Flavio Manzoni [Ferrari Senior Vice-President of Design] -- a customer dinner with 15 very good customers and their spouses.

"It was a private, warm personal environment to talk about Ferrari and the design. This is just one of the examples where we believe we’re offering such things that probably not everyone offers. These personal touch points are in relation to the brand and I’d like to focus on that more and more."

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