Editor's letter: 'We'll always need dealers,' says Lamborghini CEO

Lovely as it is, Hatfield might not seem somewhere with a big enough pull to require a visit from Lamborghini’s top executive team. Yet the Hertfordshire town is now home to Lamborghini’s 11th and largest UK dealership, and the new HR Owen franchise opened its doors at an event attended by more than 200 UK customers. The frontman for Lamborghini is Stephan Winkelmann, now on his second stint at the top of the company. While the designs of Lamborghinis are wild, Winkelmann himself is more refined in how he dresses, with the sharpest collar in the industry and a tie knot never out of place. But when he speaks, the formality slips: his eyes smile and give extra meaning and theatre to his words. We talk Hatfield first. A vast new dealership – part of a complex of new luxury dealerships from HR Owen on the site – might seem at odds with the trend to a move online and smaller, urban dealerships. (For the record, Winkelmann says: “We are not adopting the agency model.”) But in the luxury world, such touch points remain hugely important and their role goes beyond that of selling cars. “Dealers are the ambassadors of the brand." Winkelmann says. "Selling cars is still the main activity but more and more it’s to entertain, and to make [buyers] feel part of the club. These make the difference. There is huge competition with luxury brands not just on cars. There’s a huge trend of offering things money can’t buy. We need to create a fuss.” Still, the firm is continuing to invest in its digital platforms, building software to help dealers help customers to configure and explain their cars, due to their complexity. But “it has to be humanised and hands on”, says Winkelmann, with Lamborghini itself “never interfering in the sales process”. Lamborghini’s wait time for a new car is two years, which Winkelmann thinks is too long. He would prefer it to be no more than 18 months. “Residuals are sky high,” he adds, “so if you sell used, you still get the price of the new car.” Winkelmann speaks warmly of Lamborghini’s role in the Volkswagen Group under Audi ownership, calling recent reports that Lamborghini doesn’t need Audi support any more, because it is so profitable in its own right, “bulls***”. Indeed, in the electrification era that relationship is more important than ever. Winkelmann notes three things it simply couldn’t do without: the platforms for its – wait for it – “daily drivers” (the Urus and upcoming 2028 electric GT), software and batteries. While the cars are expensive, the brand is one for everyone. Lamborghini invests heavily in its museum, which had 120,000 people visit last year, largely a mix of tourists and school children. It’s at the limit of capacity but Winkelmann says the market for Asian visitors remains untapped and provides future growth potential, as most visitors now come from Europe and America. He is seeking more licensing deals – the Lego factor – as they are almost pure profit, above 90%. “Licensing helps to strengthen the brand. Lego makes the brand friendly, touchable and accessible,” says Winkelmann. These extra curricular activities might only be around 1-2% of Lamborghini revenues but it’s around 5% of the brand’s profits, and is “very good business compared to the headcount”. Its presence is also vast on social media, something Winkelmann is keen to keep investing in as the long view is taken that the teenagers of today are the car buyers of tomorrow. “We’re aware we’re serving privileged people, and there are a limited number of them. So there are a lot of people that can be left behind. Social media gives us a huge fan base, and motorsport is also part of this,” he says. On social media, Lamborghini focuses more on the brand than the cars or propulsion methods, a further long game because it doesn’t want people to fall in love with the engine that powers the car. “We have customers coming up that don’t look at how we achieve the performance.” After an audience with Winkelmann, you emerge with respect for a company that’s as well oiled and professional a machine as they come, however outrageous the cars might be.