Lamborghini sees sales dip before new supercar launch

The Murcielago is Lamborghini's best-selling 12-cylinder car, with more than 4,000 delivered in nine years.

MILAN (Reuters) -- Lamborghini ceased production of its high-performance Murcielago six months ago and will not see sales pick up again before the second half of 2011 with the launch of a successor supercar, its CEO said on Friday.

Lamborghini, a unit of Volkswagen AG's Audi, ended production of the $400,000 Murcielago in May in a move that is bound to hit full-year revenues, Stephan Winkelmann said in an e-mail to Reuters.

"This will surely have an impact on our sales performance. Compared with 2009, we will pay for the absence of the Murcielago this year," he said.

Founded in 1963 by Ferruccio Lamborghini, the company has been hit hard by the global economic crisis.

First-half sales fell 2.6 percent to 152.9 million euros ($216 million), despite continued growth in Asia, after dropping 41 percent to 281 million euros in 2009.

"In general terms, a return to the record levels seen in 2007-2008 will not be immediate, considering the slow demand from markets like Europe and the United States," Winkelmann said. "We see a recovery starting from the second half of next year." Lamborghini sold a record 2,430 cars in 2008.

The Murcielago, which is named after a fighting bull like its famous predecessor, the Diablo, and its cheaper sibling, the Gallardo, is Lamborghini's top-selling 12-cylinder car, with more than 4,000 delivered in nine years, of which 409 were sold in 2009. The last Murcielago left the company's base in Sant'Agata Bolognese, Italy, in May, for a Swiss customer.

Selling for up to 300,000 euros ($424,300) apiece, the Murcielago costs almost twice that of the Gallardo, now the company's only product on offer until the next supercar model is unveiled in Geneva in March 2011.

Looking ahead, Winkelmann said Lamborghini aimed to launch a new model every year and boost investments in new technologies.

A new initiative will be announced in Los Angeles in a couple of weeks, he said.

Lamborghini rival Ferrari, which reported third-quarter revenues of 446 million euros, up 12.6 percent from a year ago, is looking to post near record results for this year, the Fiat unit's chairman, Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, said in September.

source: http://www.autonews.com/