Pursuits
As the Rich Get Richer, Exotic Carmakers Are Winning
It’s getting harder to impress the neighbors with just a plain old sports car.
The steering wheel may be slowly going out of style, but no one seems to have told the Ferrari set.
Purchases in this rarified strata of the auto industry are accelerating far more quickly than those of the pedestrian cars and crossovers catering to the Costco crowd. Now, it’s poised to shift into an even higher sales gear. Over the past five years, the five brands that sell their cars for $200,000 and up—Bentley Motors Ltd., Ferrari NV, Automobili Lamborghini Spa, McLaren Automotive, and Rolls-Royce Motor Cars—have collectively managed a 51 percent increase in the annual number of machines sold. Last year, 30,000 of these exotic beasts roared out of dealerships.