One of the worst kept secrets in the South African automotive industry has finally been revealed — Lamborghini has a new home in the country.
We knew about it almost a year ago but behind the scenes there seem to have been some issues that needed to be addressed between the former distributors, Imperial Automotive, Lamborghini head office and the new distributors.
Keeping it within the Volkswagen Group family, the new agent for SA is LSM Distributors, the same company that already imports and manages Bentley and Porsche.
Complementary:
"We believe that Lamborghini will complement the existing vehicle brands already represented by LSM Distributors," says Toby Venter, CEO of the company and also the owner of the Kyalami racetrack facility.
Damien Percheron, area market manager Middle East and Africa for Lamborghini, said in a company statement that the experience of LSM Distributors in the luxury car segment provides Lamborghini and its customers with a sustainable future in SA.
The change in distributor comes at a crucial time for the Italian marque. It recently introduced the Aventador S roadster and the new Aventador Super Veloce (SV) Jota is also undergoing final development work. The firm has also seen increases in sales in key global markets.
Its V12 Aventador found 6% more homes in 2017 to grow to 1 173 sales, while the Huracán volumes rose 12% to 2 642.
Its biggest market was the US, with 1 095 sales, followed by Japan, the UK, Germany, China and Canada.
"Lamborghini realised another record year and we are once more outperforming our financial objectives," Automobili Lamborghini chairman and CEO Stefano Domenicali said in March .
Expectations will be even higher going forward though with the company having introduced its new Urus super SUV to the market. Priced at R3 495 000 production allocation for 2018 is already sold out worldwide but the company has capacity to produce 7 000 vehicles in total, leaving plenty of space for Urus production on top of the 3 815 vehicles it produced in 2017. – BD Motor News
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