The Ultra-Rich ...Patient Enough to Buy Supercars?

The ultra-rich have at their disposal an ever-growing list of ultra-expensive supercars. To get behind a wheel of some Lamborghinis , they need not only hundreds thousands of dollars but also great patience - sometimes a process of becoming an owner of a cool new car means years of anticipation.

The waiting lists are amazingly long, and get much longer as big City bonuses hunt for a limited stock of supercars. If you wants a new Rolls-Royce, its new model will turn up only in five years. The freshest creation of Aston Martin will require one-year patience. You will have to wait for about four months to a year to get behind a wheel of a new Bentley fine motor car, with the GTC taking the longest time to be produced.

Dealers in precious motorized metal forecast a thriving market in supercars as customers are ready to sell their vehicles on to get an instant profit to greatly disappointed would-be buyers. Someone lucky enough to get his hands on a Ferrari 599, may expect a 50,000 Euro instant profit. High rollers, including Russian multi-millionaires and football-stars, use the chance of obtaining a little older but still exclusive car models. It is not so difficult to get a Maybach limousine with its business-class reclining seats. A customer pays his 267,000 Euro to the dealer and is ready to wait for about six months while his order is slotted into the next production run. As for the much-desired Mercedes-Benz SLR high-performance car, it is said to be available from September and, so far, one may acquire the car with no particular delay.

It is interesting that the car industry experts have noticed that a rash of over-expensive cars often implies an economic slump in the nearest future. In the 1980s the leading car makers such as he Bugatti EB110 GT, Jaguar with its XJ220, and the supercar marque Cizeta tried to take advantage of the boom for cars. Yet, the appearance of their cars almost coincided in time with the recession in the beginning of the 1990s. Old cars were enthusiastically swept along - the classic car market could be compared to a speculative bubble that burst in no time, with prices even today way below the records registered at that time.

The launch of the opulent Bugatti Royale highlighted the world of supercars immediately before the Great Crash of 1929. No wonder economists who consider the luxury car market to be a major indicator on the possible recession were really concerned when the 850,000 Euro Bugatti Veyron became available in the showrooms last year.