In our most recent posting we pointed out that Aston Martin was integral to Ford’s Premier Auto Group, not just because it represented Ford’s presence in the supercar market, but because it was also profitable.

Profitability is something that once eluded supercar makers such as Aston, Ferrari, and Lamborghini, even Porsche at times. We noted that Aston Martin is, according to Ford, now a profitable unit. As Ford does not publish profitability for each of the PAG’s units, we will have to take their word for it, but we do know they sold over 5000 cars in 2006.

Take a look at Lamborghini, which according to the company, pretax profits rose to €18.1 million in 2006. That’s a 4.5-fold increase from 2005 when profits were only €4.4 million. CEO Stephan Winkelmann has said, “We have a complete model range, which is the youngest we’ve ever had. We are now a real car manufacturer.” While the “real-ness” of Lamborghini’s product line may be debatable, they do have 10-cylinder and 12-cylinder models, the Gallardo and Murciélago, respectively. Both models feature a coupe and roadster version.

Part of this increase has been due to higher demand and production. In 2000, Lamborghini produced just 1 car per day, but in 2006 they had ramped up to 13 per day. This figure is still more than a bit shy of Porsche, but respectable for considering competitor Pagani has said it will make only about 20 cars for the year.

Doing very simple math, without consideration for one time write offs/sales, we can note the following per car sales for 2006:

Manufacturer	Profit (pretax)	Production (# of cars produced)	Per car profit
Lamborghini	€ 18,000,000	2095	€ 8,591.89
Ferrari	€ 183,000,000	5671	€ 32,269.44
Aston Martin	N/A	5000	N/A
Porsche	€ 1,390,000,000	86426	€ 16,083.12

Porsche is the most profitable auto manufacturer in Europe, but per car averages put Ferrari impressively on top. Aston Martin and Pagani do not post numbers officially, but Aston reports a profit, however small that may be. Bottom-line, money CAN be made in supercars!

Sources:

Bloomberg http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000080&sid=aLQlMBk2X4yM
Lamborghini
Ferrari
http://www.automotoportal.com/article/ferrari-annual-report-2006-impressive-growth-in-revenues-and-profits
http://www.autoblog.com/2006/07/04/aston-martin-makes-a-profit
Aston Martin
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/engineering/article681820.ece
Porsche
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/15/bloomberg/bxporsche.php

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