Forget what you know about raging bulls.
Lamborghini wants to show you a softer side of Italian supercars.
So says Chief Executive Officer Stefano Domenicali, who moved to the company's top spot in March. Since then, he’s been calling for a change in tone at the Volkswagen Group-owned house. Where the sharp-edged V12 and V10 aggression of the Murcielago, Gallardo, and Aventador reigned supreme for years, Domenicali said, buyers can expect to see something different in the next few years.
“A bull is always aggressive, but I would like to give us a new philosophy toward the future: A bull can be gentle,” he said.
Urus Is Key
Domenicali’s image efforts hinge on the new Urus SUV, due out by 2018. He said the vehicle will double the company's annual global output but will remain on limited production at Lamborghini's new Sant'Agata factory. The brand sold a purposefully few 3,245 units worldwide in 2015.
“The SUV will be a game changer,” he said. “It will make Lamborghini different.”
The goal will be to make Urus immediately identifiable as a Lamborghini, both in how it looks and in how it drives, and to make it immensely “personalizeable” for a young (30-45) target audience whose members view themselves as the “protagonists” of their own lives, Domenicali said. The engine is anticipated to be a 600-horsepower, turbocharged V8 engine, rather than Lamborghini’s signature V12.
What Women Want
Even more notable, Domenicali is hoping that a big share of the SUV’s buyers will be women. This will be no small feat, considering that only 5 percent of the company’s global buyers last year were female. That’s roughly the same percentage it held even a decade ago, according to a Lamborghini spokesman. What’s more, most of those vehicles were sold to women in the U.S. and Europe; the first woman to buy a Lamborghini in India did so just three months ago.
“I don’t think anybody has captured the heart and soul of the female luxury buyer” in the supercar arena, said Milton Pedraza, CEO of the Luxury Institute, a Manhattan-based research firm. “It’s not a question of money for women in that segment. The money is not going to be the issue. It’s going to be: 'Show me you know me.'”
There is plenty of space for Lamborghini to claim. Nationwide, women buy 53 percent of all small SUVs and 48 percent of small premium SUVs, according to J.D. Power & Associates, compared to roughly 40 percent of all new cars.