Urus vital for Lamborghini

Lamborghini says its upcoming Urus SUV will double its Australian sales and bankroll the Italian brand’s next generation of naturally-aspirated supercars.

That’s the message from Lamborghini boss Stefano Domenicali, who was in Melbourne for the unveiling of the five-seat “super SUV” to customers — and the opening round of the 2018 Formula 1 World Championship.

“We are launching our new super SUV [Urus] and… we do believe that in Australia this car has a big potential. Therefore, the reason [for my visit] is to speak with dealers and speak with the customers,” Domenicali told motoring.com.au.

“Everything is really positive and what I’m really happy to see is that it’s already the second year of growth of our sales — but on top of that the [growth of] perception of our brand here in Australia.”

Domenicali believes Urus has the potential to double Lamborghini’s local sales. The brand now has a full-time executive based at Audi HQ in Sydney and is investing in dealer development and other activities.

A key focus Domenicali says is preparing the brand’s dealers both in Australia and globally for a significant step change in sales and service volume – and cater for what is essentially a new customer group: women.

Buyers new to Lamborghini represent up to 70 per cent of the order bank for Urus globally, he says.

“We are expecting to see a lot of women being part of our family. And yeah, I mean this is giving us an incredible opportunity, because it [Urus] is enlarging our portfolio not only to more [product] offers but in terms of new customers.

“As a conservative approach, we have… to double… the capacity of each dealer... But what I can see is that already, with this product [Urus], we are opening new markets that up to [now], for seasonality reason, for structure reasons, whatever reasons [have not been open to us]…

“Therefore we need to tackle and understand market by market, region by region, what is the [full] potential.

“That’s something we’re going to do over the next two years,” Domenicali explained.

But the ex-Ferrari exec and current FIA Single Seater Commission President is very clear that Lamborghini must balance the potential for SUV sales and profit with the arguably extreme sportscar-based roots and heritage of the Lamborghini brand.

“We must not forget one thing; that we will not be driven by this [SUV] success in [abandoning] our [limited] volume approach,” he said.

“We want to, of course, grow it [volume] and we’ll double the dimension of the company with this car, [but] we want to make sure that we find the right balance between exclusivity and the growth,” he stated.

Domenicali hints that this has been a balance with which some other brands have struggled.

“I cannot speak for the others, but there is a risk… because if you deliver a good car, it’s natural that you want to expose the maximum out of it,” he said.

“But because we are talking about a brand like ours, exclusivity is a value. We need to make sure that the growth will be done in the right way.”

The trade-off, Domenicali says, is capital to invest in the next generation of sports cars – in particular, the hybridisation that will ensure Lamborghini can champion naturally-aspirated V10s and V12s as a signature of the brand.

“It’s important we do a bit of trade-off between the two things… Of course, we need to make sure that the profitability that we are bringing home with this car [Urus] is there. Then [we have the funds] to invest in the step-change of the future product that we need to do in the next couple of years.

“That [hybridisation] is exactly the next step that we need to live... We have to make V12 and V10 the centre of our package,” Domenicali explained.

The Lambo chief was adamant his marque would not follow Audi’s decision to use a turbo V6 in its R8, which currently shares its V10 powertrain with Lamborghini’s Huracan.

Lamborghini sports cars will stay atmo-only, he says, adding: “With the [addition of] hybridisation, yes…

“Because we need to be different. We need to offer something different to our customers. And, we feel that the emotion that this kind of internal combustion engine has given to our customer is something unique,” he opined.