Rolls-Royce leads premium vehicle sales boom

Australia’s new vehicle market may have slumped to an eight-year low in 2019, when Kia was the only mainstream brand to increase its sales, but business at the top end of town was booming.

Rolls-Royce is a bellwether for the premium vehicle market since all of its models are priced above $600,000 or so, and last year it notched up an all-time Australian record with 55 sales.

Sales surged by 37.5 per cent over 2018 levels thanks chiefly to the British luxury brand’s first SUV, the Cullinan, as well as the Black Badge range and two-door Wraith and Dawn models. Despite being Australia’s most expensive SUV with a $685K starting price, the Cullinan found 19 new Aussie homes in its first year on sale here.

The BMW-owned prestige car-maker also sold more vehicles globally than any time in its 116-year history, with 5152 sales – up 25 per cent on its previous record in 2018 (4107) – thanks also to the Phantom and, in its final year of production, Ghost.

Rolls-Royce said the first new Ghost, its cheapest and most popular model, in 11 years will be launched in mid-2020 after a five-year development program.

Its chief rival, Volkswagen-owned Bentley, didn’t fare as well with 191 sales marking an 8.2 per cent sales decline on 2018, but the other British brand still sold 11,006 cars globally in 2019 – up five per cent and its seventh consecutive year above 10,000 sales.

Bentley said the new volume-selling Continental GT Convertible and V8 plus the Bentayga Speed and Hybrid were key to sales increase, before deliveries of the all-new Flying Spur commence early this year. Bentayga sales fell by 27 units to 71 in Australia last year.

Likewise at the performance end of the premium spectrum, Ferrari, Lamborghini and Porsche all lodged sales increases Down Under in 2019.

Lambo was up 9.7 per cent with 147 sales – tripling its sales over the last seven years and setting a second consecutive sales record – also thanks to its first SUV, the Urus, which found 77 homes (more than both the Huracan and Aventador supercars combined).

Similarly, while its first SUV remains a few years away, Ferrari posted its fifth Australian sales record in a row with 257 supercar deliveries – up 6.6 per cent and more than double its 2012 volume.

While McLaren sales were static at 88, Porsche sales were up by 6.4 per cent to 4161 deliveries, which was down from its 2017 record of 4484.

In contrast, like Maserati (down 24.9 per cent with 482 sales) and Aston Martin (down 22.8 per cent to 129), most mainstream premium brands struggled with the exception of BMW, which was up 1.1 per cent with 23,307 sales, and Lexus, which was up 9.0 per cent with 9612.

Although luxury leader Mercedes-Benz Cars was only slightly off at 31,985 (-0.7%), Audi was 19.1 per cent down at 15,708 and Alfa Romeo was a big 30.3 per cent off at just 891 sales.