Super luxury cars flock to Vietnam despite market difficulties

Immediately after arriving in Southeast Asia, Ferrari Purosangue was officially available in Vietnam from mid-June 2023.

Just last week, the appearance of Ferrari Purosangue and Maserati Grecale attracted the attention of the Vietnamese car enthusiast community. In particular, with a price of nearly 40 billion VND, Purosangue is the model that marked a historic turning point for Ferrari when it first entered the super sports SUV segment. The car is equipped with a 6.5L V12 gasoline engine, producing 715 horsepower and 716 Nm of torque. Comes with an 8-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission from Magna Powertrain. Thanks to that, this super SUV only needs 3.3 seconds to accelerate from 0-100km and a maximum speed of 310km/h. With this power, Purosangue is holding the title of the most powerful SUV in the world.

For its part, with a listed price of 4.2 billion VND to 7.5 billion VND, Grecale is the second SUV in Maserati's history, with a smaller size than its predecessor Levante. This means Grecale will compete on par with Porsche Macan in Vietnam. The car has three engine options, the lowest being a 300 horsepower mild hybrid engine on the GT version. While the highest-end version Trofeo uses a twin-turbocharged 3.0L V6 engine, producing 530 horsepower, accelerating from 0-100km/h in just 3.8 seconds.

A McLaren Artura in a showroom in Ho Chi Minh City.

Purosangue and Grecale appeared just a few days after the Bentley Bentayga EWB Azure was introduced to domestic users. This British car model is priced from 21 billion VND, much higher than the "normal" Bentayga (starting from about 18.5 billion VND), competing directly with some rivals such as Rolls-Royce Cullinan or Mercedes-Maybach GLS, Aston Martin DBX. The car is equipped with a 4.0L twin-turbo V8 petrol engine, 542 horsepower, allowing acceleration from 0-100km/h in 4.6 seconds before reaching a maximum speed of 290km/h.

The sudden appearance of the above-mentioned super luxury car models not long after Lamborghini Urus Perfomante, Aston Martin DBX 707, McLaren Artura, Mercedes Benz C63 SE Performance... is something that surprised many people, in the context of the car market being in a steady decline since the beginning of 2023 until now.

However, talking with representatives of the auto business system, the super luxury car market is basically not much affected by the difficult developments of the economy .

An employee at Mercedes-Benz’s An Du dealership said that the number of cars delivered to customers last month was much lower than the same period last year. However, the decline was mainly recorded in the “cheap” car lines of this brand (about under 2 billion VND), while high-end lines such as the Mercedes-Maybach GLS still had customers.

Meanwhile, Bentley Vietnam reported that the newly launched Bentayga EWB Azure immediately had two customers pre-order it.

Super luxury car manufacturers often receive requests from customers, then produce to satisfy individual preferences, so they are less affected by temporary developments in the general market.

Meanwhile, a representative of Ferrari in Vietnam also commented that popular cars often need to calculate the amount of inventory and remaining capital, so they will choose the launch time to ensure sales. Meanwhile, super luxury cars are often delivered according to each order, so there is no pressure of launching a car but not being able to sell immediately.

According to experts, another reason that allows luxury cars to maintain their "vitality" in the midst of common difficulties is that customers who access this group of cars often have very good financial conditions, so they are less affected by economic fluctuations or bank interest rates for car loans. In addition, they often buy cars based on their preferences, passions, and the need to promote their personal image, which means that their spending calculations also go beyond the usual rules.

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