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Lamborghini is Selling Well in the Ever Growing Exotic Segment

VW AG Shows Good Parenting Skills in Ultra-Premium Territory

Although Volkswagen hasnt been able to transform its namesake brand into a premium automaker overnight, its Phaeton luxury sedan hasnt exactly burned up the sales charts, it has been doing an impressive job nurturing its ultra-premium brands.

Bentley is the first marque that springs to mind. Thanks to the aforementioned Phaeton, which shares much of its architecture and underlying components with the Continental GT super coupe, the winged-B logo can be found on thousands more vehicles than ever before in the British brands storied history. Crewe is so busy building the new GT, as well as the Arnage and new

VW has done a good job parenting its ultra-premium brands, helping Bentley to achieve record sales with its Continental GT. (Photo: Trevor Hofmann, American Auto Press)

Continental Flying Spur, a four-door version of the GT, while tooling up for a new convertible GT and a full-size drop-top once again named Azure, that its had to send some of its work across the channel to Germanys Phaeton plant.

Further south on the European continent, Volkswagens other ultra-premium investment, Lamborghini, is beginning to show similar signs of health.

Now the best-selling model in Lamborghinis history, the Italian brand built its 3,000th Gallardo last Thursday. (Photo: Lamborghini)

The dramatic Murciélago showed the world once again that Lamborghini is indeed one of the most forward thinking automakers on the planet, and now that the new Gallardo can be had for six figures less, and then some, while seemingly every bit as exotic as its larger, more powerful sibling, sales are up significantly.

Now the best-selling model in Lamborghinis history, the Italian brand built its 3,000th Gallardo last Thursday, bypassing the brands previous record of 2,903 Diablos built over ten years. Yes, thats right. It took

Could Lamborghini look at building a four-door model, like it did under Chryslers parentage with the Portofino concept. (Photo: Lamborghini)

ten years to accomplish what the Gallardo has done in just under two.

"Its a reason for us to be proud that this goal was reached in less than 24 months," said Lamborghini Chief Executive Stefan Winkelmann, in a statement.
With sales booming, theres opportunity to look at other areas where Lamborghini might be able to succeed, and with a parts bin as large and varied as Volkswagens the possibilities are limitless. Still, Lamborghini has an image to uphold, and going any further down market in the sports car segment might not benefit the brand over the long term.

Therefore, only lateral expansion would do, which means that

It only makes sense for Lamborghini to expand into the SUV segment, where it previously offered the LM002. (Photo: Lamborghini)

Lamborghini could potentially offer a super sedan, similar to such four-door coupes as Mercedes-Benzs CLS or Porsches upcoming Panamera. This might be a good move for the Italian marque, and probably wouldnt infringe on its Bentley division - not that Volkswagen has lost too much sleep over such considerations in the past (A8 vs. Phaeton) - being that Bentley buyers tend to be more conservative than Lamborghini owners. Lamborghini could call it the Portofino (although that name might now be owned by Hyundai which showed a crossover concept by the same name only last year), after a 1987 concept the brand put forward when under Chrysler parentage.

The other even more obvious opportunity for Lamborghini would be a sport-oriented SUV. While some might say that Porsche has now paved the

A future LM003 could be in the cards, as Lamborghini showed the LM003 Borneo off-road design study by SZ Design (Zagato) a few years back. (Photo: Zagato)

way for any sports car brand to go off-road, the reality is actually opposite. Lamborghini offered an SUV long before Porsche, a military conveyance dubbed LM002 that was often used more by Saudi sheiks and their well-armed personal militias than by any governmental military.

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