Ferrari boss Luca di Montezemolo has vowed to reduce waiting times for all new cars to less than a year.
At present buyers have to wait up to two years to take delivery of a new Ferrari 458 Italia. The 599, 430 Coupe, 430 Spider and 612 Scaglietti also all have waiting lists in excess of 18 months.
Di Montezemolo has conceded that this is hurting the company's image and may mean potential buyers look elsewhere.
"It looks bad against the competition," he told Autocar.
However, he stressed that Ferrari wouldn't cut waiting times by upping production numbers.
"We’re not talking about building more cars, we’re talking about building them quicker," he said.
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Re: Ferrari vows to cut waiting times
Maybe VW could get some tips from him....
Re: Ferrari vows to cut waiting times
That's not Porsches philosophy, it's Ferraris. It comes from a quote made by Enzo Ferrari.
Anyway, Porsche is pretty much a volume manufacturer these days.
Re: Ferrari vows to cut waiting times
Couldn't tell you on a new Ferrari, but on most other manufacturers with more sensible waiting times, dealers are allocated production slots for several months in advance and load customer orders into these slots. Once order times get longer and order numbers exceed the slots available, dealers hang on to deposits and load the orders once slots are available.
If the order is placed and the car is discontinued before being able to be ordered, the dealer either refunds the deposit or offers to put the deposit towards the newer model. It is extremely unlikely the dealer will have any photos of new cars before journos as these things are very tightly controlled by PR departments nowadays with globally managed embargo dates, so only a few privileged directors of dealership groups get sneak peeks at new models before press pics are released, your average salesman won't see much before Autocar does.
If you place a deposit before the manufacturer announces the spec, then the dealer takes a deposit at the time and then usually contacts you shortly before they have to load the order to confirm the final spec you require. (if they are doing their job properly)