ROLLS-ROYCE has received around 1,500 serious expressions of interest in its soon to be launched Ghost model – a figure that would more than double the group’s annual sales.
The company, owned by Germany’s BMW, will not unveil the new car until September, but has generated “overwhelmingly positive” feedback after touring the world with a prototype, chief executive Tom Purves has said.
“Over 10,000 people have expressed some sort of interest, but at least 15 per cent have expressed a genuine desire to own the vehicle,” he said.
The Ghost will be sold alongside the company’s existing Phantom model. Rolls Royce sold a record 1,200 Phantoms in 2008, but Purves said he expected sales to be flat this year as the economic downturn bites.
“We are trading reasonably well, just not on the scale of last year,” he said, adding that the luxury end of the car industry was typically late to enter recession and late coming out of it.
Purves also said that Rolls-Royce was delivering a profit to its loss-making German parent.
“We expect to continue to make a (profitable) contribution,” he said.
He added that in his view the economy had bottomed out.
– Reuters