May 17 (Bloomberg) - Lamborghini SpA, the luxury automaker controlled by
Volkswagen AG's Audi unit, may add a sport-utility vehicle to its line-up of
sports cars to help double sales.
"
This is something we are working on - the SUV market is growing faster and
faster," said Lamborghini President Stephan Winkelmann in an interview in
Moscow, where the company is opening two dealerships next year.
Lamborghini, which built a sport utility in the 1980s, is
looking for new
ideas to boost sales and earnings as demand for existing models remains
little changed. Winkelmann forecast revenue this year will be close to last
year's 243 million euros ($306 million). The company sold 1,596 vehicles
last year, including the $328,000 Murcielago and $184,000 Gallardo.
"If we stick to the super sports cars, we will not top 2,000 units a year" in
coming years, he said. "It would be a dream to have an SUV.
We could easily
double sales."
Developing the model would require additional investment from Audi, which has
pumped as much as 350 million euros ($442 million) into Lamborghini since
acquiring it in 1998, Winkelmann said.
"It would be a very aggressive vehicle, an extreme dream car, and Lamborghini
fans wouldn't care too much about the price," said Patrick Juchemich, an
analyst at Sal Oppenheim in Frankfurt.
Audi SUV
Audi is preparing to introduce a sport utility, the Q7, next year. The
vehicle is based on the same architecture as the Volkswagen Touareg and
Porsche AG's Cayenne and comes more than a decade after Mercedes introduced
its M-Class model.
Porsche introduced the Cayenne SUV in 2002 to boost sales and reduce its
dependence on sports cars, including the 911. Sales of the Cayenne helped
the Stuttgart, Germany-based company boost profit for a 10th consecutive
year in the 12 months ended July 31.
Lamborghini built the LM sport utility from 1981 to 1992, including a version
that generated 485 horsepower. The company's first model was the Lamborghini
350 sports car, built between 1963 and 1967.
The Italian carmaker was once owned by Chrysler Corp. as well as by Hutomo
Mandala Putra "Tommy" Suharto, the youngest son of former Indonesian
President Suharto, after going into receivership in the 1970s.
Russia, China
Lamborghini aims to boost sales by entering new markets such as Russia and
China, where the number of wealthy individuals is growing.
"There is demand in these markets for luxury vehicles," said Sal Oppenheim's
Juchemich.
The new Moscow dealerships next year will come after the company opened three
showrooms in China at the end of last year. It also opened its first in
Malaysia three weeks ago.
The company aims to sell 20 to 25 cars each in
China and Russia in the first year, boosting that to about 100 by the end of
the decade, Winkelmann said.
"The Russian and Chinese markets are growing fast and could grow even faster
in the next decade," he said.
The U.S., Germany and U.K. are the company's top three markets. The company
plans to open as many as five more dealerships in the US, which accounts for
about 40 percent of cars sold.
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But I can guruntee some people did, if I owned it, I probably wouldn't take it offroad. Just keep it as a collectors item, there were not very many made. 
Originally Posted by ruim20
